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SOCIAL  RELIGION 


XOTT  NEARING 


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SOCIAL    RELIGION 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  •    BOSTON   •    CHICAGO 
ATLANTA   •    SAN   FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO..  Limited 

LONDON    •    BOMBAY    •    CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


SOCIAL  RELIGION 


AN  INTERPRETATION  OF  CHRISTIANITY 
IN   TERMS  OF   MODERN   LIFE 


BY 

SCOTT   NEARING,  PhD 

Wharton  School,  University  of  Pennsylvania 
Author  of  "  Social  Adjustment,"  "  The  Super  Race,"  etc. 


From  an  address  delivered  before  the  Friends'  General 
Conference,  Ocean  Grove,  New  Jersey,  July  7,  1910. 


iSeto  3^orfe 

THE   MACMII.LAN  COMPANY 

1913 

^  ic.  '6  9  O 


Copyright,  1913,  bt 
THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

Set  up  and  electrotyped.    Published  January,  1913 


Priated  by  J.  J.  Little  &  Ives  Co.,  New  York 


Uh 


I  J  ^  n 


To 
LYMAN  P.  POWELL 

A  MINISTER 

WHO    TEACHES    AND    LIVES 

SOCIAL  RELIGION 


PREFACE 

While  misery  remains  in  the  land;  while 
men  are  condemned  to  underpay  and  over- 
work; while  women  are  forced  into  prosti- 
tution, and  children  are  compelled  to  labor, 
there  will  be  need  for  a  Social  Religion. 

Boundless  wealth  is  appalled  by  the  squalor 
grovelling  at  its  doors.  Along  the  avenue 
rushes  Twentieth  Century  Civilization  snugly 
ensconced  in  a  motor;  in  the  adjacent  alley. 
Terror,  in  the  semblance  of  a  wolf,  hunts  with 
lolling  tongue  and  hungry  w^hine.  Such  so- 
cial injustice — hideous  in  a  barbaric  society, 
grotesque  in  the  United  States — constitutes 
one  of  the  problems  of  Social  Religion. 

The  wretched  gamble  for  pennies;  the  well- 
fed  for  forests,  mines,  dignities,  offices.  Ig- 
norance and  graft — twin  shadows  of  degen- 
eracy— stalk  through  every  higliway  of  the 
land.  Unless  the  pall  of  ignorance  can  be 
lifted;  unless  the  tentacles  of  graft  can  be 
cut  awav;  men  and  women  will  continue  to 
[vii] 


PREFACE 

live  and  to  die  with  the  possibihties  of  their 
lives  still  unfulfilled. 

Where  there  is  no  vision,  the  people  perish. 

It  is  the  function  of  Social  Rehgion  to 
abolish  ignorance  and  graft,  and  to  provide 
a  vision  of  normal  manhood  and  adjusted 
life  toward  which  society  may  strive. 


[  viii  ] 


INTivODuL^iiON 

gs.  6  3  :^  i? 

Accepting  the  definition  of  religion  given 
by  Jesus — a  belief  in  God,  shown  by  the  love 
of  one's  neighbor — it  may  be  fairly  asserted 
that  the  religious  spirit  is  omnipresent  in  the 
United  States.  One  prominent  clergyman 
even  goes  so  far  as  to  say  "The  passion  for 
altruism  was  never  so  deep  nor  so  widely  dis- 
tributed." Perhaps  he  overstates  the  matter, 
yet  the  fact  remains  that,  on  every  hand,  men 
and  women  are  earnestly  seeking  through  phi- 
lanthropy, education,  political  and  social  re- 
form, and  even  through  revolution,  to  express 
their  intense  desire  to  serve  their  fellows. 

Hardly  less  noticeable  than  this  prevalence 
of  altruism  is  the  falling  off  in  the  influence 
of  the  established  church.  "It  is  losing  in 
many  ways,"  writes  Charles  D.  Williams, 
Bishop  of  Michigan.  "It  is  losing  in  num- 
bers." "It  is  losing  ground."  "It  is  losing 
hold  on  the  masses  and  classes  alike."  "It  is 
losing  influence.  The  voice  of  the  Church 
[  ix  1 


INTRODUCTION 

does  not  speak  to-day  with  its  old-time  accent 
of  authorit}^"  "It  is  frequently  ignored, 
sometimes  even  wnn  contempt.  The  minis- 
try no  longer  attracts  young  men  as  it  once 
did."  "She  preaches,  for  the  most  part,  a 
narrow  and  petty  round  of  ethics,  the  minor 
moralities  of  purely  personal  conduct,  respec- 
tabilities, good  form,  technical  pieties  and  ec- 
clesiastical proprieties,  while  the  age  is  seek- 
ing the  larger  righteousness  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God  which  is  'human  society  organized  ac- 
cording to  the  will  of  God.'  "  ^  The  church  is 
judged  by  its  fruit,  and  so  often  is  that  fruit 
tainted  with  the  bitterness  of  theological 
dogma  instead  of  being  permeated  by  the 
transcendent  power  of  love,  that  the  average 
layman  looks  askance  at  organized  religion. 
He  has  held  the  church  before  the  bar  of  his 
soul,  constituting  himself  a  jury  of  one,  and 
he  has  rendered  a  verdict  of  "guilty  of  neglect- 
ing those  higher  things — Justice,  Mercy, 
Faith." 

This    lay-verdict    against    the    church    is 
strengthened   by   such   ministers    as    Walter 

*The  Conflict  Between  Religion  and  the  Church.    American 
Magazine,  June,  1911,  Vol.  1-2,  pp.  147-149. 

[x] 


INTRODUCTION 

Kauschenbusch,  who  in  his  "Christianity  and 
the  Social  Crisis"  points  out  very  clearly  the 
extent  to  which  the  church  has  failed  to  ful- 
fill its  mission.  Together  with  the  progressive 
wing  in  every  ministerial  group,  he  is  insist- 
ing that  faith  without  works  is  dead;  that  a 
theory  of  brotherhood  which  eventuates  in  a 
practice  of  industrial  exploitation  and  social 
robbery  is  a  calamitous  failure;  that  since 
Jesus  meant  what  He  said,  if  the  Christian 
church  is  to  be  Christian,  it  must  keep  His 
sayings  in  spirit  and  truth.  When  even  the 
rulers  and  high  priests  speak  their  minds  thus 
openly,  it  is  small  wonder  that  the  laymen 
doubt. 

In  Jesus'  time  people  were  ignorant,  sick, 
poor  and  vicious.  He  taught,  healed,  preached, 
comforted  and  associated  with  the  hapless 
ones.  "They  that  be  whole  need  not  a  physi- 
cian" were  his  biting  words.  "I  came  not  to 
call  the  righteous,  but  sinners  to  repentance." 
To  the  fault-finding  lawyer,  and  to  the  hypo- 
critical scribes  and  Pharisees,  he  told  a  tale 
of  need  and  succor,  exclaiming,  "Go  and  do 
thou  likewise."  If  ignorance,  sickness,  pov- 
erty and  vice  exist  in  America  to-day,  perhaps 
[xi] 


INTRODUCTION 

the  "Go  and  do  thou  likewise"  command  still 
holds  good.  Nay,  perhaps,  it  is  the  function 
of  the  successful  churcli  to  see  tliat  the 
Father's  business  is  attended  to  and  that,  even 
though  there  be  ninety  and  nine  just  persons, 
needing  no  repentance,  the  one  who  wanders 
on  the  barren  foot-hills  of  ignorance  and  sin 
is  rescued  and  brought  back  into  the  fold. 

Do  ignorance,  sickness,  poverty  and  vice 
still  exist?  Is  there  a  need  for  the  great  Physi- 
cian? Does  America  present  opportunities  for 
loving  service  similar  to  those  which  Jesus 
found  in  Palestine?  Those  are  the  questions 
which  the  Managers  of  the  Friends'  Confer- 
ence wished  to  have  answered.  "Tell  us  the 
facts.  We  are  ignorant  of  social  conditions. 
Wake  us  up."  Such  was  the  character  of  their 
request — and  in  pursuance  of  that  request  the 
material  embraced  in  this  book  was  collected. 

It  seemed  desirable  to  show  three  things. 

1.  That  in  the  United  States  there  are  ig- 

norance, poverty  and  vice  inviting  the 
touch  of  the  Good  Samaritan. 

2.  That  these  things  are  preventable. 

3.  That,  if  the  church  wishes  to  live  up 

[xii] 


INTRODUCTION  • 

to  the  ideals  of  its  Founder,  it  must 
cease  dogmatizing  and,  in  pursuance 
I  of  Jesus'  example,  it  must  preach, 

heal  and  teach. 

I  went  before  the  Conference  as  an  econo- 
mist, not  as  one  versed  in  theology.  Yet,  I 
had  studied  the  New  Testament  with  great 
care,  because  I  believed  it  to  be  one  of  the 
most  valuable  books  within  the  reach  of  the 
social  scientist.  Therefore,  I  placed  the  re- 
sult of  that  study  before  the  Conference,  con- 
trasting the  spirit  of  the  Gospels  with  the  con- 
ditions of  American  life,  and  asking  the  mem- 
bers present  to  judge  whether  there  was  not 
some  need  for  a  new  birth  in  religion.  The 
address  throughout  is  a  statement  of  fact 
rather  than  a  formulation  of  theory.  The 
need  must  be  established  before  action  is  pos- 
sible. INIost  of  the  facts  presented  are  already 
thoroughly  familiar  to  social  students,  but 
their  presentation  engendered  a  storm  of  pro- 
test. People  received  them  incredulously,  or 
else  regarded  them  as  gross  overstatements  of 
the  truth.  Those  members  of  the  Conference 
who  came  from  rural  districts  were  especially 
[  xiii  ] 


INTRODUCTION 

obdurate  in  their  refusal  to  believe  the  state- 
ments. Unless  these  facts  are  facts,  there  is 
obviously  no  need  for  remedy.  Yet,  there  the 
facts  stand,  stubborn — awful  in  some  cases — 
awaiting  a  solution.  Careful  investigation  by 
the  best  experts  has  verified  their  authenticity 
and  repeated  attempts  to  sneer  them  aside  have 
proved  futile. 

*  Confronted  by  certain  facts,  Jesus  said  and 
did  certain  things.  His  followers,  if  con- 
fronted^ by  similar  facts,  should,  if  they  be 
what  they  profess  to  be,  imitate  His  words 
and  deeds.  Such  imitation  would  constitute, 
for  the  Christian,  a  Social  Religion. 

As  the  address  was  delivered,  low  stan- 
dards and  the  subjection  of  women  alone  were 
emphasized.  Child  labor,  congestion,  over- 
work, unemployment,  accidents  and  prema- 
ture death  were  merely  mentioned  in  pass- 
ing. In  preparing  the  material  for  this  book, 
the  whole  address  has  been  revised,  and  a  dis- 
cussion of  these  last  topics  has  been  added. 
The  work  throughout  has  been  left  in  its 
spoken  form.  It  is  in  many  places  rough- 
hewn,  and  the  language  is  rugged,  but  that 
is  due  to  the  fact  that  it  has  been  taken  from 
[xiv] 


INTRODUCTION 

spoken  discourse  where  the  hest  effect  is  pro- 
duced by  earnest,  direct  rhetoric. 

In  this  revision,  the  sequence  of  the  thought 
is  exactly  as  it  appeared  in  its  original  form, 
namely : 

1.  That  men  at  bottom  are  worth  wliile. 

2.  That  the  vast  majority  of  people  will 

be  normal  and  virtuous  if  given  an 
opportunity  to  lead  decent  lives. 

3.  That  the  provision  of  that  opportu- 

nity was  the  function  of  the  Social 
Religion  which  Jesus  preached  two 
thousand  years  ago,  and  that  it  is 
still  the  function  of  a  Social  Rehgion 
to-day. 

The  church  may  be  slow  to  accept  this  state- 
ment. Entrenched  behind  great  ramparts  of 
theological  dogma,  it  may  continue  to  ignore 
the  facts  of  life ;  may  continue  to  speak  in  an- 
cient formulas ;  may  give  tithes  of  mint,  anise 
and  cummin;  may  make  clean  and  sweet  the 
outside  of  the  cup  and  the  platter;  but  with- 
out its  walls,  known  to  every  human  being 
who  sees  and  thinks  and  feels,  are  these  puls- 
ing clamorous  facts  of  life.  We  have  seen 
[xv] 


INTRODUCTION 

tlicm.    We  know  them,  and,  having  seen  and 
known,  we  are  tlirilled  with  the  will  to  do. 

Apart  from  any  theological  consideration, 
the  spirit  of  religion  dominates  the  American 
people.  We  long  to  serve.  We  wait,  impa- 
tiently, for  some  force  to  direct  our  altruistic 
impulses.  We  are  seeking,  seeking  earnestly, 
for  a  Social  Religion — a  religion  that  will  meet 
the  demands  of  to-day — a  religion  that,  like 
the  teachings  of  Jesus,  will  be  gladly  listened 
to  by  the  common  people.  We  desire,  as  never 
before,  to  be  taught  the  way  that  we  should 
go.  So  we  stand  without  the  walls  of  the 
church,  and  cry  aloud  for  guidance  in  the  con- 
duct of  our  lives.  Individual  ignorance  vies 
with  social  injustice.  We  would  be  freed 
from  both.    Will  the  church  hear  our  voices? 


[  xvi  I 


CONTEXTS 

CHAPTER  PAQB 

I.    The  Social  Viewpoint  of  Jesu3 1 

II.     America — ^The  Land  of  Plenty 16 

III.  The  Haggard  Man 30 

IV.  The  Motherless  Girl 53 

V.    The  Factory  Child 73 

VI.     Devouring  Widows'  Houses 89 

VII.     The  Long  Day 104 

VIII.     The  Curse  of  Enforced  Idleness 124 

IX.     Human  Sacrifice 138 

X.     Reaping  the  Young  Grain 158 

XI.     The  Silver  Lining 167 

XII.    SocL\L  Religion  in  Theory 185 

XIII.  Social  Religion  in  Practice 200 

XIV.  The  Social  Responsibility  OF  THE  Christian  Church  214 


SOCIAL  RELIGION 


SOCIAL   RELIGION 

CHAPTER  I 

THE    SOCIAL    A^IEWPOINT    OF 
JESUS 

AT  all  times  men  seem  to  have  failed  in 
their  actions  to  attain  to  their  ideals,  so 
that  between  profession  and  practice  a  great 
gulf  is  fixed.  One  age  is  nearer  to  its  ideal, 
another  is  farther  from  it ;  yet  always  the  deed 
lags  behind  the  world  until  the  saying  "It  is 
a  good  divine  that  follows  his  own  instruction" 
is  as  true  to-day  as  it  was  in  the  Elizabethan 
Age.  If  this  gulf  between  profession  and 
practice  is  so  wide  that  even  the  divines  can- 
not cross  it,  what  can  one  expect  of  the  con- 
gregations? It  is  small  wonder,  where  the 
shepherds  hesitate  and  stumble,  that  the  sheep 
draw  back  affrighted. 

There  is,  in  this  discrepancy  between  pre- 
cept and  example,  no  real  cause  for  despond- 

[1] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

ency.  If  all  who  hitched  their  chariots  to  stars 
were  really  dragged  in  the  mud,  we  might  well 
ponder.  It  is  because  some  have  succeeded  in 
rising  above  the  sky-line  that  we  press  forward 
with  enthusiastic  resolve.  Enthusiasm  alone, 
however,  will  not  suffice.  In  all  things  some 
guiding  principle  must  exist,  and  the  enthu- 
siasm of  man  must  be  leavened  by  judgment. 

Nearly  two  thousand  years  ago,  there  came 
out  of  Nazareth  a  man  who  spoke  in  exalted 
speech;  who  breathed  an  atmosphere  of  in- 
spiration ;  who  prophesied  of  a  time  which  was 
to  come  when  mankind  would  rise  to  higher 
standards  of  nobility.  This  man  was  called 
Jesus,  the  Christ,  and  those  who  believe  His 
precepts,  and  seek  to  regulate  their  conduct 
by  His  teachings,  call  themselves  Christians — 
Christ-like. 

What  did  Jesus  believe?  What  did  He 
say?  What  did  He  do?  What  was  the  spirit 
of  His  gospel  to  the  world  ? 

The  concept  of  human  brotherhood  and  of 
social  welfare  which  dominates  the  religions 
of  the  western  world  was  made  an  essential 
part  of  religion  by  Jesus  in  far-off  Galilee,  for 
it  was  He  who  said,  "  Ye  have  heard  that  it 

[2] 


SOCIAL  VIEWPOINT  OF  JESUS 

hath  been  said,  an  eye  for  an  eye,  and  a  tooth  I 
for  a  tooth.  But  I  say  unto  you,  that  ye  I 
resist  not  evil,  but  overcome  evil  with  good." 
Again,  "Ye  have  heard  that  it  hath  been  said, 
thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  and  hate  thine  , 
enemy.  But  I  say  unto  you,  love  your  ene-  i 
mies."  And  yet  again,  "Whatsoever  ye  would  j 
that  men  should  do  to  you,  do  ye  even  so  to  ; 
them." 

It  is  in  vain  that  the  modern  philosopher 
enunciates  the  savage  precept,  "Do  or  be 
done."  It  is  in  vain  that  the  successful  busi- 
ness man  preaches  the  barbaric  doctrine  of 
"every  man  for  himself  and  the  devil  get  the 
hindermost."  Society  has  progressed ;  man  has 
moved  forward;  we  have  ceased  to  fight  over 
our  prey  like  hyenas,  or  to  tear  one  another 
to  pieces  like  wolves.  Our  religion  requires 
that  each  be  for  all,  and  all  for  each,  and  if 
we  would  but  follow  this  doctrine  the  devil's 
business  would  be  insolvent. 

Let  us  examine  the  social  teachings  of 
Jesus;  let  us  ask  ourselves  what  thoughts  un- 
derlie His  Social  Religion?  One  Sunday,  Plis 
disciples,  passing  through  a  cornfield,  picked 
and  ate  some  of  the   grain,   for  thejr  were 

[31 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

hungiy.  The  fault-finding  scribes  and  Phar- 
isees, at  this  breach  of  their  Sabbatherian  Law, 
hurried  to  Jesus,  demanding,  "Why  do  Thy 
disciples  do  that  which  is  not  lawful  on  the 
Sabbath  day?"  Jesus,  in  His  reply,  pointed 
out  the  inconsistency  of  Judaism.  "Which  of 
you,"  He  asked,  "that  had  an  ox  or  a  sheep 
fall  into  a  pit  on  the  Sabbath  would  not  lay 
hold  on  it  and  draw  it  out?  How  much  better 
is  a  man  than  a  sheep!"  Then,  turning  from 
His  illustration,  He  spoke  that  memorable 
phrase  which  summarized  His  whole  religious 
doctrine,  "The  Sabbath  was  made  for  man 
and  not  man  for  the  Sabbath."  The  Sabbath 
was  ordained  to  give  man  a  day  of  rest,  but 
the  scribes  and  Pharisees  had  made  it  a  day 
of  wearisome  obedience  to  meaningless  rules 
and  traditions. 

Applied  in  a  larger  sense  this  doctrine  means 
that  religion  was  made  for  man  and  not  man 
for  religion.  The  church  should  be  the  serv- 
ant, not  the  master  of  men.  Jesus  taught  that, 
if  you  are  to  maintain  a  Social  Religion,  you 
must  stop  sacrificing  mankind  on  the  altars 
of  your  iron-bound  creeds ;  cease  your  demand 
for  human  service  and  serve  humanity,  for  it 
[4] 


SOCIAL  VIEWPOINT  OF  JESUS 

is  onty  by  social  service  that  the  church  can 
hold  its  own. 

If  you  would  fully  understand  Jesus'  Social 
Religion,  recollect  His  attitude  toward  social 
problems.  The  smug,  self-satisfied  conceit  of 
a  superior  social  class  is  an  abomination  to 
Him.  "Two  men  went  up  into  the  Temple 
to  pray,  the  one  a  Pharisee,  and  the  other  a 
publican.  The  Pharisee  praj^ed  thus  with  him- 
self, 'Lord,  I  thank  Thee  that  I  am  not  as 
other  men  are,  extortioners,  adulterers,  unjust 
even  as  this  publican.  I  fast  twice  in  the  week, 
I  give  tithes  of  all  that  I  possess.'  The  pub- 
lican standing  afar  off  would  not  so  much  as 
lift  up  his  eyes  unto  Heaven,  but  smote  upon 
his  breast,  saying,  'God,  be  merciful  to  me,  a 
sinner.'  'I  say  unto  you,'  said  Jesus,  'that  this 
man  went  down  justified  rather  than  the  other, 
for  every  one  that  exalteth  himself  shall  be 
abased,  but  he  that  humbleth  himself  shall  be 
exalted.'  " 

Listen  to  His  arraignment  of  those  scribes 
and  Pharisees  who,  engrossed  in  selfish  piu'- 
suits  and  satiated  with  their  traditional 
righteousness,  were  playing  havoc  with  tlie 
lives  of  human  beings  over  whom  they  had 

[51 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

acquired  or  inherited  power.  "They  bind 
heavy  burdens  and  grievous  to  be  borne,  and 
lay  them  on  men's  shoulders;  but  they  them- 
selves will  not  move  them  with  one  of  their 
fingers."  "Woe  unto  you,  scribes  and  Phari- 
sees, hypocrites !  for  ye  devour  wddows'  houses, 
and  for  a  pretense  make  long  prayers:  there- 
fore ye  shall  receive  the  greater  damnation. 
Woe  unto  you,  scribes  and  Pharisees,  hypo- 
crites! for  ye  pay  tithe  of  mint  and  anise  and 
cummin,  and  have  omitted  the  weightier  mat- 
ters of  the  law,  justice,  mercy  and  faith:  these 
ought  ye  to  have  done  and  not  to  leave  the 
other  undone.  Ye  blind  guides,  which  strain 
at  a  gnat  and  swallow  a  camel.  Woe  unto  you, 
scribes  and  Pharisees,  hypocrites !  for  ye  make 
clean  the  outside  of  the  cup  and  of  the  plat- 
ter, but  within  they  are  full  of  extortion  and 
excess.  Thou  blind  Pharisee,  cleanse  first  that 
which  is  within  the  cup  and  platter,  that  the 
outside  of  them  may  be  clean  also.  Woe  unto 
you,  scribes  and  Pharisees,  hypocrites!  for  ye 
are  like  unto  whited  sepulchres,  which  indeed 
appear  beautiful  outward,  but  are  within  full 
of  dead  men's  bones  and  of  all  uncleanness. 
Even  so  ye  also  outwardly  appear  righteous 

[6] 


SOCIAL  VIEWPOINT  OF  JESUS 

unto  men,  but  within  ye  are  full  of  hypocrisy 
and  iniquity."  "Ye  serpents,  ye  generation  of 
vipers,  how  can  ye  escape  the  damnation  of 
hell?" 

Strong  words?  Aye,  truly,  and  richly  mer- 
ited, for  these  men,  the  horn  leaders  of  God's 
chosen  people,  had  betrayed  their  trust;  had 
cast  aside  their  obligations  to  the  society  of 
which  they  formed  so  essential  a  part;  and, 
in  riotous  living,  and  meaningless  word  bandy- 
ings,  squandered  the  substance  of  the  nation 
on  the  one  hand,  and  debased  its  religion 
on  the  other.  Jesus  plays  fierce  havoc  with 
their  pretended  righteousness.  It  is  thus 
that  He  always  condemned  those  who,  hav- 
ing received  ten  talents  of  opportimity  and 
power,  failed  to  return  ten  talents  of 
service. 

You  that  trust  in  riclies  are  not  sure  of 
Heaven,  for  gold  and  jewels  and  fine  raiment 
must  alike  be  left  behind  when  you  begin  your 
journey  thither,  and  whether  you  be  rich  or 
poor,  bond  or  free,  you  must  stand  naked 
before  your  God.  Your  social  position  in  life 
will  be  forgotten,  and  you  will  be  judged  as 
a  man.  In  that  dav  "what  shall  it  profit  a 
*[7] 


SOCIAL   RELIGION 

man  if  lie  shall  gain  tHe  wHole  world  and  lose 
Ills  own  soul?" 

There  was  one  dramatic  incident  in  the 
career  of  Jesus  which  stands  out  above  all  the 
others  in  its  portrayal  of  His  patience  and  love 
and  understanding.  They  brought  to  Him 
an  object  of  contempt  and  abhorrence,  a 
woman  taken  in  adultery,  and  said  to  Him, 
"This  woman  was  taken  in  adultery.  Now 
Moses  commanded  that  such  should  be  stoned, 
but  what  sayest  Thou?"  This  they  said  sneer- 
ingly — ^tempting  him,  but  Jesus  stooped  down 
and  wrote  with  His  finger  in  the  sand.  When 
they  continued  questioning  Him,  He  stood  up 
and  said,  "He  that  is  without  sin  among  you, 
let  him  cast  the  first  stone  at  her,"  and  then 
He  stooped  down  again.  Ashamed  of  their 
hypocrisy,  the  woman's  accusers  turned  and 
went  out,  leaving  her  alone  with  Jesus.  When 
He  arose,  seeing  that  they  had  all  departed. 
He  asked  gently,  "Where  are  these  thine  ac- 
cusers? Hath  no  man  condemned  thee?" 
She  answered,  "No  man,  Lord."  Then  said 
Jesus  unto  her,  "Neither  do  I  condemn  thee. 
Go  and  sin  no  more." 

America  reeks  with  prostitution  to-day ;  girls 
[8] 


SOCIAL  VIEWPOINT  OF  JESUS 

are  led,  pushed  and  dragged  down  into  an 
inferno  that  beggars  description;  yet  society 
and  the  Church  draw  up  the  hem  of  their  gar- 
ments and  pass  by  with  pitying  contempt,  for- 
getting that  Jesus  said  to  such  a  one  "Neither 
do  I  condemn  thee."  Have  you  judged? 
Have  you  condemned  ?  "With  what  j udgment 
ye  judge,  ye  shall  be  judged  and  with  what 
measure  ye  mete,  it  shall  be  measured  to  you 
again" — good  measure,  pressed  down,  shaken 
together  and  running  over.  You  may,  indeed, 
be  one  of  the  ninety  and  nine  within  the  fold, 
but  you  may  not,  even  for  that  reason,  drive 
the  one  away  from  the  gates,  back  into  the 
deserts  of  life. 

Jesus  ate  dinner  with  publicans  and  sinners 
and  when  He  was  rebuked  for  His  presump- 
tion. He  replied,  "They  that  are  whole  need 
not  a  physician,  but  the}?^  that  are  sick.  I  came 
not  to  call  the  righteous,  but  sinners  to  re- 
pentance." Perhaps  if  Jesus  were  on  Earth 
to-day,  He  would  pass  by  your  sin-free  house, 
living  His  days  and  niglits  with  those  social 
outcasts  who  are  not  even  worthy  to  eat  of  the 
ci-umbs  that  fall  from  your  sumptuous  table. 

The  world  is  full  of  unfortunates.  Do  you 
[9] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

remember  Jesus'  doctrine  regarding  them? 
A  certain  man  went  down  from  Jerusalem  to 
Jericho,  and  fell  among  thieves,  which  stripped 
him  of  his  raiment  and  wounded  him,  and  de- 
parted, leaving  him  half  dead.  And  by  chance 
there  came  down  a  certain  priest  that  way,  and 
when  he  saw  him  he  passed  by  on  the  other 
side.  And  likewise  a  Levite,  when  he  was  at 
the  place,  came  and  looked  on  him,  and  passed 
bj'^  on  the  other  side.  But  a  certain  Samaritan, 
as  he  journeyed,  came  where  he  was;  and 
when  he  saw  him  he  had  compassion  on  him. 
And  went  to  him  and  bound  up  his  wounds, 
pouring  in  oil  and  wine,  and  set  him  on  his 
own  beast,  and  brought  him  to  an  inn  and 
took  care  of  him.  And  on  the  moiTow  when 
he  departed  he  took  out  two  pence  and  gave 
them  to  the  host  and  said  unto  him,  take  care 
of  him;  and  whatsoever  thou  spendest  more 
when  I  come  again  I  will  repay  thee.  "Which 
now  of  these  three,"  asked  Jesus,  "thinkest 
thou,  was  neighbor  unto  him  that  fell  among 
the  thieves?"  The  lawj^er  answered,  "He  that 
showed  mercy  on  him."  Then  said  Jesus  unto 
him,  '^go  and  do  thou  likewise." 

"Go  and  do  thou  likewise."    Do  you  think 
[10] 


SOCIAL  VIEWPOINT  OF  JESUS 

that  injunction  was  meant  to  apply  only  to 
Jerusalem  and  Jericho,  or  might  it  also  apply 
to  New  York,  Philadelphia  and  St.  Louis? 
Jesus  gave  that  command  to  the  Jewish 
lawyer.  He  gave  it  also  to  the  manufacturer, 
the  stone  mason  and  the  minister  in  twentieth 
century  America. 

On  one  occasion  a  lawyer  came  and  asked 
Him,  "Which  is  the  first  and  greatest  com- 
mandment?" And  Jesus  replied,  "Thou  shalt 
love  the  Lord  thy  God,"  and  "the  second  is 
like  unto  it,  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as 
thj'^self."  Thus  does  Jesus  clearly  describe  the 
foundation  stone  of  his  religion — love  of  God 
and  of  humanity,  expressed  through  service  to 
one's  fellowmen.  Upon  such  a  foundation  He 
could  establish  nothing  less  than  a  Social  Re- 
ligion— a  religion  of  love,  fellowship,  broth- 
erhood and  social  service. 

Jesus  taught  a  social  doctrine.  We  profess 
to  follow  His  teachings.  In  how  far  have  we 
obeyed  His  command,  "Go  and  do  thou  like- 
wise" to  all  unfortunates?  Suppose  that 
Jesus  should  come  to  America  to-night — to 
one  of  our  great  cities — to  New  York,  or  Chi- 
cago, or  Baltimore.  Would  He  enter  the 
[11] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

sumptuous  chu  relies?  AVoukl  He  teach? 
Would  He  preach?  Would  He  heal?  AVould 
He  love?  Beautiful  buildings,  exquisite  win- 
dows, divine  singing — but  how  was  that  church 
built?  Who  gave  the  windows?  Who  pays 
the  salaries?  There  are  men  working  twelve 
hours  a  day,  seven  days  a  week  in  the  steel 
mills  of  Pittsburg.  Are  you  a  stockholder  of 
United  States  Steel?  Did  you  drop  an  offer- 
ing into  the  collection  box  ?  You  thought  that 
you  were  dropping  in  silver  or  gold,  but  it 
was  the  bloody  sweat  of  a  fellow  being,  labor- 
ing hopelessly  beside  the  roar  of  the  blast  fur- 
nace— sacrificed  on  the  altar  of  industrial 
progress.  There  are  silk  mills  near  Scranton 
working  all  night,  where  at  midnight  the 
children,  boys  and  girls,  are  sent  out  together 
into  the  darkness  to  "freshen  up"  for  the  next 
six  hours  of  toil.  Do  you  hold  silk  mill  bonds  ? 
They  are  children's  bodies  and  children's  souls 
that  you  clip  with  your  coupons,  and  your 
tithe  to  the  house  of  God  reeks  \^dth  the  degra- 
dation of  future  generations.  There  are  ten- 
ements in  every  city  of  the  land,  broken, 
squalid,  without  sanitation,  air  or  sunlight. 
Are  you  a  landlord  ?  Has  that  fire-escape  been 
[12] 


SOCIAL  VIEWPOINT  OF  JESUS 

repaired?  That  drainage  improved?  Are  the 
cellars  still  overflowing  with  filth  and  disease? 
Then  perhaps  it  was  you  who  placed  the  angels 
on  that  window — angels  whose  very  wings  are 
hesmirched  with  the  misery  of  men  and  women 
and  little  children. 

"Woe  unto  you,  scribes  and  Pharisees,  hypo- 
crites, which  devour  widows'  houses  and  for  a 
pretense  make  long  prayers.  Therefore,  ye 
shall  receive  the  greater  damnation."  v 

Beautiful  buildings,  exquisite  windows,  di- 
vine singing,  but  Charles  Rann  Kennedy  very 
pertinently  asks,  "Do  you  think  any  blessing 
is  going  to  fall  upon  a  church  whose  every 
stone  is  reeking  with  the  bloody  sweat  and  an- 
guish of  the  human  creatures  whom  the  wealth 
of  men  like  that  has  driven  to  despair?  Shall 
we  base  God's  altar  on  the  bones  of  harlots, 
plaster  it  up  wdth  the  slime  of  sweating  dens 
and  slums,  give  it  over  for  a  gaming  table  to 
the  dice  of  gamblers  and  of  thieves?"  We  can- 
not erect  Christian  churches  on  overworked, 
human  misery.  We  cannot  found  a  Social  Re- 
ligion on  the  proceeds  of  social  injustice. 

Suppose  that  Jesus  should  come  to-night 
and  enter  such  a  Christian  church.  What 
[13] 


SOCIAL   RELIGION 

would  be  His  sensations  ?  A  Friend  once  tried 
to  picture  them.  Listen  to  this  parable  writ- 
ten by  a  gentle,  unflinching  champion  of  hu- 
man brotherhood,  James  Russell  Lowell : 


A  PARABLE 

Said  Christ  our  Lord,  "I  will  go  and  see 
How  the  men,  my  brethren,  believe  in  Me." 
He  passed  not  again  through  the  gate  of  birth. 
But  made  himself  known  to  the  children  of  earth. 


Then  said  the  chief  priests,  and  rulers,  and  kings, 
"Behold,  now,  the  Giver  of  all  good  things; 
Go  to,  let  us  welcome  with  pomp  and  state 
Him  who  alone  is  mighty  and  great." 

Great  organs  surged  through  arches  dim 
Their  jubilant  floods  in  praise  of  Him; 
And  in  church,  and  palace,  and  judgment-hall. 
He  saw  His  image  high  over  all. 


But  still,  wherever  His  steps  they  led. 
The  Lord  in  sorrow  bent  down  His  head. 
And  from  under  the  heavy  foundation  stones 
The  son  of  Mary  heard  bitter  groans. 
[14] 


SOCIAL  VIEWPOINT  OF  JESUS 

And  in  cliurch,  and  palace^  and  judgment-hall. 
He  marked  great  fissures  that  rent  the  wall. 
And  opened  wider  and  yet  more  wide 
As  the  living  foundation  heaved  and  sighed. 

"Have  ye  founded  your  thrones  and  altars,  then, 
On  the  bodies  and  souls  of  living  men? 
And  think  ye  that  building  shall  endure. 
Which  shelters  the  noble  and  crushes  the  poor? 

"With  gates  of  silver  and  bars  of  gold 

Ye  have  fenced  My  sheep  from  their  Father's  fold; 

I  have  heard  the  dropping  of  their  tears 

In  heaven  these  eighteen  hundred  years." 

"O  Lord  and  Master,  not  ours  the  guilt. 
We  build  but  as  our  fathers  built; 
Behold  thine  images,  how  they  stand, 
Sovereign  and  sole,  through  all  our  land." 

Then  Christ  sought  out  an  artisan, 
A  low-browed,  stunted,  haggard  man, 
And  a  motherless  girl,  whose  fingers  thin 
Pushed  from  her  faintly  want  and  sin. 

There  sat  He  in  the  midst  of  them, 
And  as  they  drew  back  their  garment  hem. 
For  fear  of  defilement,  "Lo,  here,"  said  He, 
"The  images  ye  have  made  of  Me!" 

[15] 


CHAPTER  II 
AMERICA— THE  LAND  OF  PLENTY 

Jesus  sought  out  a  low-browed,  stunted, 
haggard  workingman  and  a  motherless  girl 
who  was  making  her  fight  for  decency  and 
bread,  and,  setting  them  in  the  midst,  said, 
"These  are  the  products  of  your  Christian  civ- 
ilization— the  images  you  have  made  of  Me." 

But  is  it  not  idle  to  talk  in  such  a  strain? 
This  is  a  prosperous  nation!  Our  factories 
create  eight  billions  of  wealth  each  year,  and 
our  mines  two  billions  more.  Does  not  our 
foreign  commerce  include  fifty  million  tons? 
We  raise  ten  million  bales  of  cotton,  and 
even  our  chickens  help  to  augment  pros- 
perity by  contributing  annually  ten  thousand 
millions  of  eggs.  Each  year  our  farmers  grow 
three  billion  bushels  of  corn  and  a  billion 
bushels  of  oats.  Each  twelvemonth  witnesses 
the  production  of  twenty-five  million  tons  of 
steel,  six  billion  gallons  of  petroleum  and  four 
[16] 


AMERICA— THE  LAND  OF  PLENTY 

hundred  trillion  cubic  feet  of  natural  gas.  We 
are  destroying  the  boll  weevil  in  the  South, 
wiping  out  hog-cholera  in  the  West,  and  con- 
serving the  lobster  crop  of  jNIaine  for  the  in- 
digestion of  future  generations.  Our  national 
wealth  is  represented  bj^  one  hundred  and 
twenty  billions  of  d:  liars.  Surely  this  is  a 
prosperous  nation! 

Yet  even  tliis  aj^parent  prosperity  will  bear 
analysis,  for  it  recalls  the  conversation  in 
Dickens'  "Hard  Times"  between  Mr.  Mc- 
Choakumchild,  the  schoolmaster,  and  Sissy 
Jupe,  the  circus  rider's  daughter.  Mr.  ]Mc- 
Choakumchild,  who  is  giving  a  lesson  in  polit- 
ical economy,  says:  "Now  this  school  room  is 
a  nation,  and  in  this  nation  are  fifty  millions 
of  money.  Girl  number  twenty,  isn't  this  a 
prosperous  nation,  and  ain't  you  in  a  thriving 
state?"  And  girl  number  twenty,  who  has 
grown  up  on  woefully  short  rations,  hesitat- 
ingly replies  that  she  cannot  tell  whether  it 
is  a  prosperovis  nation  or  whether  she  is  in  a 
thriving  state  until  slie  knows  who  has  the 
money  and  whether  any  of  it  is  hers. 

Truly  the  point  is  well  made.  It  may  not 
indeed  be  applicable  to  the  United  States,  for 
[17] 


SOCIAL   RELIGION 

an  analysis  of  conditions  may  show  that  Sissy 
Jupe,  together  with  her  milhons  of  boy  and 
girl  friends,  is  receiving  a  generous  share  in 
national  prosperity.  Yet  national  prosperity 
cannot  be  measured  in  terms  of  steel  rails  and 
pig  iron,  since  it  depends  ultimately  upon  the 
prosperity  of  the  individuals  constituting  the 
nation. 

It  is  true  that  the  United  States  is  a  pros- 
perous country;  a  land  flowing  with  milk  and 
honey;  a  billion-dollar  country;  a  land  of 
plenty.  Tell  us,  girl  number  twenty,  Httle 
undernourished  Sissy  Jupe,  isn't  this  a  pros- 
perous nation  and  ain't  you  in  a  thriving  state? 
There  is  plenty  of  everything  in  this  big  coun- 
try of  yours — plenty  of  ability;  plenty  of  ge- 
nius; plenty  of  natural  resources — land,  coal, 
oil,  water-power;  plenty  of  factories;  plenty 
of  money;  plenty  of  opportunities;  plenty  of 
leisure;  plenty  of  enjoyment;  plenty  of  child 
labor;  plenty  of  sweat  shops;  plenty  of  over- 
work; plenty  of  unemployment;  j)lenty  of 
poverty;  plenty  of  vice;  plenty  of  misery. 
The  United  States  is  a  land  of  great  plenty, 
but  an  analysis  of  this  plenty  reveals  startling 
incongruities. 

[18] 


AMERICA— THE  LAND  OF  PLENTY 

First — Ability  and  genius  are  distributed 
rather  evenly  through  all  classes  of  the  popu- 
lation. Thus  has  nature  provided,  in  her  laws 
of  heredity,  that  each  new  generation  shall 
start  with  a  new  standard  of  qualities  and 
virtues. 

Second — The  natural  resources,  factories, 
opportunities,  leisure  and  enjoyment  are  the 
possessions  of  the  few.  Here  man  has  en- 
tered the  field,  enacting  property  laws,  and 
laws  of  inheritance,  which  permit  one  man 
to  group  together,  under  his  own  control, 
great  quantities  of  nature's  gifts,  and, 
after  using  them  until  he  can  use  them  no 
more,  to  hand  them  on  to  his  children — to  be 
their  possessions  so  long  as  the  world  shall 
endure. 

Third — Child  labor,  overwork,  unemploy- 
ment, povertj^  vice  and  misery  are  the  pos- 
sessions of  the  many.  They  are  endured  by 
the  fathers  and  handed  by  them  to  the  chil- 
dren. Here  and  there  a  genius  arises,  and, 
despite  the  fell  grip  of  circumstance  in  which 
he  was  born,  pushes  forward  to  success,  raising 
his  entire  family  out  of  the  class  of  the  many, 
into  the  class  of  the  few.     Generallv  speak- 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

ing,  however,  the  children  assume  the  burdens 
of  their  fathers. 

Fourth — And  here  hes  the  answer  to  all 
those  who  prate  of  American  plenty — The 
people  who  have  plenty  of  natural  resources, 
opportunities  and  leisure  have  no  child  labor, 
poverty  and  misery,  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  people  who  have  child  labor,  poverty  and 
misery  have  no  resources,  opportunities  and 
leisure. 

Fifth — We  maj^  therefore,  summarize  the 
situation  by  saying  that  in  the  United  States 
plenty  exists  everywhere.  Nature  has  scat- 
tered plenty  of  ability  and  genius  through  all 
elements  of  the  population.  Man  has  im- 
proved upon  nature,  and  in  his  distribution  of 
economic  goods  has  carefully  discriminated, 
giving  to  one  class  plenty  of  heaven,  and  to 
another  plenty  of  hell;  and  he  has  founded 
the  heaven  of  natural  resources,  opportunity 
and  leisure — the  heritage  of  the  rich — upon 
the  hell  of  overwork,  poverty  and  misery — the 
lot  of  the  poor. 

Side  by  side  these  things  exist;  side  by  side 
stand  the  mansions  of  Fifth  Avenue,  adorned 
beautifully;  and  the  tenements  of  Hester 
[20] 


AMERICA— THE  LAND  OF  PLENTY 

Street,  squalid,  insanitary,  hideous.  Side  by 
side  are  women  striving  hopelessly  to  make 
the  hours  run — riding,  driving,  bridging,  vis- 
iting, dressing,  buying,  squandering,  travel- 
ing— leading  lives  of  aimless,  helpless  ease; 
and  women  with  seamed  faces  and  gnarled 
hands  rising  in  the  twilight  of  the  morning, 
at  the  screech  of  a  factory  whistle,  toiling  all 
of  the  weary  day,  living,  striving,  saving, 
stinting — stretching  a  tiny  income  that  it  may, 
perchance,  fill  a  great  gulf  of  expense.  Side 
by  side  are  the  children — this  one  fed,  clothed, 
housed,  educated,  sent  to  college,  to  Europe, 
and  finally  started  in  business  with  a  strong 
body,  a  trained  mind,  and  a  social  position  that 
will  enable  him  to  push  forward  to  the  highest 
pinnacle  of  business  success;  that  one,  born 
into  parsimony  and  misery,  undernourished, 
half  clothed,  ^v^Tetchedly  housed,  indifferently 
educated,  and  at  the  age  of  fourteen  stood 
before  a  machine  in  a  steaming  cotton  fac- 
tory— without  sunlight,  or  air,  or  play,  or  even 
exercise — and  told  to  do  his  little  part  in  the 
creation  of  national  prosperity.  These  things  / 
exist  side  by  side,  and  you,  in  luxury,  never 
think  of  misery;  you,  on  the  bright  side,  never 
[21  1 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

learn  of  the  blackness  of  the  dark  side;  you, 
in  the  sunlight,  never  dream  of  the  shadow; 
you  cannot  know — j^ou  cannot  conceive  what  is 
just  behind  you — if  you  could  know,  if  you 
could  secure  but  an  inkling  of  the  real  world, 
perhaps  you  might  look  about  and  see 
that,  because  you  are  in  the  light,  you  cast  a 
shadow,  and  that,  because  you  take  more  than 
your  share  of  the  light,  others  must  be  con- 
tent with  darkness.  Nay,  you  might  even 
come,  in  time,  to  see  that  others  are  dwelling 
in  the  shadow  which  you  cast.  Meanwhile, 
you  condemn  those  who,  dwelling  in  darkness, 
bear  the  stamp  of  the  darkness  upon  their 
faces  and  their  souls.  You  who  have  made 
that  darkness;  are  not  its  products  hideous? 

How  absurd!  You  cry.  We  do  not  cast 
shadows — like  the  less  fortunate,  we  live. 
Let  them  come  to  the  light,  if  they  wish  it. 
We  do  not  grudge  them  a  share  of  it!  Is  it 
our  fault  that  they  suffer? 

Is  it?    Who  shall  say! 

Perhaps  you  know  John  Ruskin's  analysis 
of  dress,  in  which  he  touches  on  this  point.    If 
you  are  not  acquainted  with  it,  you  should  be, 
for  it  is  one  of  the  classics  of  literature. 
[22] 


AMERICA— THE  LAND  OF  PLENTY 

"Granted,"  he  -writes,  "that,  whenever  we 
spend  money  for  whatever  pnrposc,  we  set 
people  to  work;  and,  passing  by,  for  the  mo- 
ment, the  question  v,hether  the  work  we  set 
them  to  is  all  equally  healthy  and  good  for 
them,  we  will  assmiie  that  whenever  we  spend 
a  guinea  we  provide  an  equal  number  of 
people  with  healthy  maintenance  for  a  given 
time.  But,  by  the  way  in  which  we  spend  it, 
we  entirely  direct  the  labor  of  those  people 
during  that  given  time.  We  become  their 
masters  or  mistresses,  and  we  compel  them  to 
produce,  within  a  certain  period,  a  certain  ar- 
ticle. Now,  that  article  may  be  a  useful  and 
lasting  one,  or  it  may  be  a  useless  and  perish- 
able one — it  may  be  one  useful  to  the  whole 
communit3%  or  useful  only  to  ourselves.  And 
our  selfishness  and  folly,  or  our  virtue  and 
prudence,  are  shown,  not  by  our  spending 
money,  but  by  our  spending  it  for  the  wrong 
or  the  right  thing;  and  we  are  wise  and  kind, 
not  in  maintaining  a  certain  number  of  people 
for  a  given  period,  but  only  in  requiring  them 
to  produce,  during  that  period,  the  kind  of 
things  which  shall  be  useful  to  society,  instead 
of  those  which  are  only  useful  to  ourselves. 
[23] 


SOCIAL   RELIGION 

"Thus,  for  instance:  if  you  are  a  young 
lady,  and  emj^loy  a  certain  number  of  semp- 
stresses for  a  given  time,  in  making  a  given 
number  of  simple  and  serviceable  dresses,  sup- 
pose, seven;  of  which  you  can  wear  one  your- 
self for  half  the  winter,  and  give  six  away  to 
poor  girls  who  have  none,  you  are  spending 
your  money  unselfishly.  But  if  you  employ 
the  same  number  of  sempstresses  for  the  same 
number  of  days,  in  making  four,  or  five,  or 
six  beautiful  flounces  for  your  own  ball-dress — 
flounces  which  will  clothe  no  one  but  your- 
self, and  which  you  will  j^ourself  be  unable 
to  wear  at  more  than  one  ball — ^j^ou  are  em- 
ploying your  money  selfishly.  You  have 
maintained,  indeed,  in  each  case,  the  same  num- 
ber of  people;  but  in  the  one  case  you  have 
directed  their  labor  to  the  service  of  the  com- 
munity; in  the  other  case  you  have  consumed 
it  wholly  upon  yom'self .  I  don't  say  you  are 
never  to  do  so ;  I  don't  say  you  ought  not  some- 
times to  think  of  yourselves  only,  and  to  make 
yourselves  as  pretty  as  you  can;  only  do  not 
confuse  coquettishness  with  benevolence,  nor 
cheat  yourselves  into  thinking  that  all  the  fin- 
ery you  can  wear  is  so  much  put  into  the 
[24] 


AMERICA— THE  LAND  OF  PLENTY 

hungry  mouths  of  those  beneath  you ;  it  is  not 
so ;  it  is  what  you  yourselves,  whether  you  will 
or  no,  must  sometimes  instinctively  feel  it  to 
be — it  is  what  those  who  stand  shivering  in  the 
streets,  forming  a  line  to  watch  you  as  you 
step  out  of  your  carriages,  know  it  to  be ;  those 
fine  dresses  do  not  mean  that  so  much  has  been 
put  into  their  mouths,  but  that  so  much  has 
been  taken  out  of  their  mouths.  The  real  po- 
litical-economical signification  of  every  one  of 
those  beautiful  toilettes  is  just  this;  that  you 
have  had  a  certain  number  of  peoj)le  put  for 
a  certain  number  of  days  wholly  under  your 
authorit}^  by  the  sternest  of  slave-masters — 
hunger  and  cold;  and  you  have  said  to  them, 
'I  will  feed  you,  indeed,  and  clothe  you,  and 
give  you  fuel  for  so  many  days;  but  during 
those  days  you  shall  work  for  me  only;  your 
little  brothers  need  clothes,  but  j'ou  shall  make 
none  for  them:  your  sick  friend  needs  clothes, 
but  you  shall  make  none  for  her:  you  yourself 
will  soon  need  another,  and  a  warmer,  dress, 
but  you  shall  make  none  for  yourself.  You 
shall  make  nothing  but  lace  and  roses  for  me; 
for  this  fortnight  to  come,  you  shall  work  at 
the  patterns  and  petals,  and  then  I  wiU  crush 
[25] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

and  consume  them  away  in  an  hour.'  You 
will  perhaps  answer — *It  may  not  be  particu- 
larly benevolent  to  do  this,  and  we  won't  call 
it  so;  but  at  any  rate  we  do  no  wrong  in  tak- 
ing their  labor  when  we  pay  them  their  wages : 
if  we  pay  for  their  work  we  have  a  right  to 
it.'  No — a  thousand  times  no.  The  labor 
which  you  have  paid  for  does  indeed  become, 
by  the  act  of  purchase,  your  own  labor;  you 
have  bought  the  hands  and  the  time  of  those 
workers;  they  are,  by  right  and  justice,  your 
own  hands,  your  own  time.  But,  have  you  a 
right  to  spend  your  own  time,  to  work  with 
your  own  hands,  only  for  your  own  advan- 
tage— much  more,  when,  by  purchase,  you 
have  invested  your  own  person  with  the 
strength  of  others;  and  added  to  your  own 
life  a  part  of  the  life  of  others?  You  may, 
indeed,  to  a  certain  extent,  use  their  labor  for 
your  delight :  remember,  I  am  making  no  gen- 
eral assertions  against  splendor  of  dress,  or 
pomp  of  accessories  of  life;  on  the  contrary, 
there  are  many  reasons  for  thinking  that  we 
do  not  at  present  attach  enough  importance  to 
beautiful  dress,  as  one  of  the  means  of  influ- 
encing general  taste  and  character.  But  I  do 
[26] 


AMERICA— THE  LAND  OF  PLENTY 

say  that  you  must  weigh  the  vakie  of  what 
you  ask  these  workers  to  produce  for  you  in 
its  own  distinct  balance ;  tliat  on  its  own  worth- 
iness or  desirableness  rests  the  question  of  your 
kindness,  and  not  merely  on  the  fact  of  your 
having  employed  people  in  producing  it:  and 
I  say,  farther,  that  as  long  as  there  are  cold 
and  nakedness  in  the  land  around  you,  so  long 
there  can  be  no  question  at  all  but  that  splen- 
dor of  dress  is  a  crime.  In  due  time,  when  we 
have  nothing  better  to  set  people  to  work  at, 
it  may  be  right  to  let  them  make  lace  and  cut 
jewels;  but,  as  long  as  there  are  any  who  have 
no  blankets  for  their  beds,  and  no  rags  for 
their  bodies;  so  long  it  is  blanket-making  and 
tailoring  we  must  set  people  to  work  at — not 
lace. 

"And  it  would  be  strange,  if  at  any  great 
assembly  which,  while  it  dazzled  the  young  and 
the  thoughtless,  beguiled  the  gentler  hearts 
that  beat  beneath  the  embroidery,  with  a  placid 
sensation  of  luxurious  benevolence  as  if,  by 
all  that  they  wore  in  waywardness  of  beauty, 
comfort  had  been  first  given  to  the  distressed, 
and  aid  to  the  indigent;  it  would  be  strange,  I 
say,  if,  for  a  moment,  the  spirits  of  Truth  and 
[27] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

of  Terror,  which  walk  invisibly  among  the 
masques  of  the  earth,  Avoiild  lift  the  dimness 
from  our  erring  thoughts,  and  show  us  how — 
inasmuch  as  the  sums  exhausted  for  that  mag- 
nificence would  have  given  back  the  failing 
breath  to  many  an  unsheltered  outcast  on  moor 
and  street — they  who  wear  it  have  literally  en- 
tered into  partnership  with  Death ;  and  dressed 
themselves  in  his  spoils.  Yes,  if  the  veil  could 
be  lifted  not  only  from  your  thoughts,  but 
from  your  human  sight,  you  would  see — the 
angels  do  see — on  those  gay  white  dresses  of 
yours,  strange  dark  spots,  and  crimson  pat- 
terns that  you  knew  not  of — spots  of  the  in- 
extinguishable red  that  all  the  seas  cannot  wash 
away ;  yes,  and  among  the  pleasant  flowers  that 
crown  your  fair  heads,  and  glow  on  your 
wreathed  hair,  you  would  see  that  one  weed 
was  always  twisted  which  no  one  thought  of — 
the  grass  that  grows  on  graves."  ^ 

On  this  side  is  the  bright  light:  on  that  the 
shadow.  Dwellers  in  the  sunshine,  how  black 
is  the  darkness  which  you  help  to  make! 

Do  you  consider  these  statements  extreme — 
you  who  believe  in  the  Fatherhood  of  God, 

1  Unto  This  Last. 

[28] 


AMERICA— THE  LAND  OF  PLENTY 

and  the  Brotherhood  of  INIan?  Do  yovi  scoiF 
at  the  very  suggestion  that  such  conditions 
exist  in  the  richest  country  of  the  world,  in 
the  Twentieth  Century  that  has  passed  since 
Jesus  taught  His  followers  love  and  fellow- 
ship, and  that  you  reap  their  fruits  and  are  re- 
sponsible for  their  continuation  ?  Despite  your 
scoffing,  these  statements  are  true — true  in 
all  their  blackness.  They  mock  at  us  from 
the  rostrums  of  our  colleges,  and  the  shelves 
of  our  libraries ;  they  grimace  at  us  out  of  the 
alleys  and  courts  that  surround  our  splendid 
Houses  of  God ;  they  scowl  at  us  from  our  fac- 
tories and  mills;  they  curse  us  from  our  jails 
and  penitentiaries.  They  are  the  product  of 
our  Christian  Civilization — they  will  be,  they 
must  be,  made  known  in  order  that  some  step 
may  be  taken  to  remove  them  forever.  Let 
me  try  to  explain  some  of  the  things  which 
prevent  haggard  men,  motherless  girls,  and 
little  undeveloped  Sissy  Jupes  from  leading 
normal  joyous  lives. 


[29  1 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  HAGGARD  MAN 

There  is  no  one  economic  factor  which  more 
accurately  measures  a  civilization  than  its  stand- 
ard of  living,  for  nothing  will  make  men 
low-browed,  stunted  and  haggard  more  quickly 
than  insufficient  food,  clothing  and  shelter. 
Last  year  our  farmers  harvested  $10,000,000,- 
000  worth  of  agricultural  products,  yet  in 
every  industrial  center  of  the  land  people  are 
starving.  They  do  not  starve  to  death.  That 
is  the  insidious  part  of  it.  If  they  died  of 
starvation  the  nation  would  instantly  abolish 
conditions  which  produced  such  results — but 
the  men  visit  the  saloons  to  satisfy  their  crav- 
ings for  food,  and  in  filthy  hovels  to  which, 
perhaps,  your  rent  checks  owe  their  origin, 
women  bring  into  the  world  children  who  grow 
up  low-browed,  stunted  and  haggard,  to  per- 
petuate the  inefficiency,  squalor  and  wi'etched- 
ness  of  their  parents. 

[30] 


THE    HAGGARD    :MAN 

Tens  of  thousands  of  families  in  the  United 
States  are  underfed  because  their  incomes  are 
too  small  to  permit  of  decent  living.  Children 
are  being  raised  on  standards  that  can  under 
no  circumstances  produce  full-blooded  men 
and  women.  An  appeal  to  the  official  docu- 
ments will  show  that  these  conditions  exist  on 
every  side. 

The  authorities  of  some  of  the  larger  cities 
have  been  examining  school  children  and, 
where  a  child  has  appeared  to  be  suffering 
from  malnutrition,  investigating  the  home  con- 
ditions. There  were  two  children  in  one  city 
school,  a  brother  and  sister.  They  looked 
ansemic,  badly  nourished;  they  were  in  the 
early  stages  of  what  would  be  the  low-browed, 
stunted  form  later  in  life.  Their  mother,  who 
^vas  a  widow,  earned  six  or  seven  dollars 
a  week  by  scrubbing  saloons.  She  was  a 
good  manager,  a  hard-working,  sober  woman. 
This  is  the  menu  of  that  family  for  one 
^veek : 


Sunday.  Breakfast,   bread  and   tea    (no  milk). 

Dinner,   soup    (from    soup    bone)    and    potatoes; 

bread. 
Supper,  bread   and   tea   (no  milk). 

[31] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 


Monday.        Breakfast,  bread   and  tea    (no  milk). 

Dinner,   fried  potatoes   (lard)    and  gravy   (made 

from  left-over  soup). 
Supper,  bread   and  tea   (condensed  milk   in  tea). 
Tuesday.        Breakfast,    bread    and    tea    (condensed    milk    in 
tea). 
Dinner,  boiled  rice  with  tomatoes   (canned). 
Supper,  bread  and  tea  (condensed  milk  in  tea). 
Wednesday.  Breakfast,    bread    and    tea    (condensed    milk    in 
tea). 
Dinner,    boiled    potatoes    and    stewed    tomatoes 

(canned). 
Supper,  bread  and  tea   (condensed  milk  in  tea). 
Thursday.      Breakfast,  bread  and  tea  (no  milk). 

Dinner,  bread  and  molasses   (mother  out  work- 
ing). 
Supper,  boiled  cabbage. 
Friday.  Breakfast,   bread    and    tea    (no    milk). 

Dinner,  boiled  cabbage. 
Supper,  bread  and  molasses. 
Saturday.      Breakfast,  bread  and  tea  (no  milk). 
Dinner,  boiled  potatoes. 
Supper,  bread  and  tea   (no  milk). 

Bread  and  tea,  no  milk;  boiled  cabbage; 
bread  and  molasses;  bread  and  tea,  no  milk. 
The  menu  reads  rather  monotonously,  and 
that  monotony,  eight  days  of  it,  cost  one  dol- 
lar and  fifty  cents.  Three  meals  a  day  for 
three  people  for  eight  days — seventy-two 
meals  for  a  dollar  and  a  half. 

You  will  say  that  this  woman  was  a  widow 
and  therefore  not  a  fair  example,  but  six  dol- 
[32] 


THE  HAGGARD  MAN 

lars  for  a  woman  and  two  children  averages 
more  than  nine  dollars  for  a  man,  wife  and 
three  children,  and  nine  dollars  is  the  standard 
common  labor  wage,  while  a  man,  wife  and 
three  children,  nnder  fourteen,  is  the  standard 
family. 

Three  years  ago  a  number  of  New  York 
experts  were  asked  to  name  a  minimum 
amount  upon  which  a  family  consisting  of  a 
man,  wife  and  three  children,  under  fourteen, 
could  maintain  a  decent  living.  Sixteen  ex- 
perts made  calculations,  their  figures  ranging 
from  $768  to  $1,449,  and  centering  at  $950. 
The  social  workers  were  aghast.  "What," 
they  exclaimed,  "nine  hundred  and  fifty  dol- 
lars ;  why,  that  is  over  three  dollars  a  working 
day!" 

An  investigation  alone  would  establish  the 
facts,  and  a  careful  investigation  was  made. 
The  results  of  this  statistical  studj^  were  thus 
announced.  "An  income  of  nine  hundred  dol- 
lars or  over  probably  permits  the  maintenance 
of  a  normal  standard,  at  least  so  far  as  the 
physical  man  is  concerned."  "Whether  an 
income  between  eight  hundred  dollars  and 
nine  hundred  dollars  can  be  made  to  suffice 
[  33  ] 


SOCIAL   RELIGION 

is  a  question  to  which  oitr  data  do  not  war- 
rant a  dogmatic  answer."  ^  Nine  hundred  dol- 
lars a  year  is  three  dollars  for  each  working 
day. 

Any  man  on  the  Island  of  Manhattan  who 
is  earning  less  than  three  dollars  per  working 
day  and  who  has  a  wife  and  three  children  is 
probably  living  below  a  normal  standard  of 
living. 

Data  from  other  cities  is  very  inadequate, 
but  such  facts  as  are  available  indicate  that  it 
costs  as  much  to  live  in  Pittsburg  as  it  does  in 
New  York;  that  in  Baltimore  the  minimum  is 
seven  hundred  and  fifty  dollars,  and  that  in 
Philadelphia,  Boston  and  Buffalo  it  is  some- 
where between  seven  hundred  and  fifty  and 
nine  hundred  dollars. 

A  recent  Federal  study,  published  in  1911, 
relating  to  small  towns,  comes  to  the  conclu- 
sion that,  in  Fall  River,  "The  total  cost  of  the 
fair  standard  for  the  English,  Irish  or  Cana- 
dian French  family  is  $731.99,  and  for  the 
Portuguese,   Polish   or   Italian   family    it   is 

*The  Standard  of  Living  of  Working  Families  in  New 
York  City,  R.  C.  Chapin,  New  York,  The  Charities  Publica- 
tion Com.,   1909,  p.  246. 

[34] 


THE    HAGGARD    jNIAN 

$690.95."  ^  In  Georgia  and  South  Carolina 
mill  to^vns,  "The  father  must  earn  $600.75  in 
order  to  support  himself"  according  to  a  stand- 
ard which  "will  enable  him  to  furnish  them 
good  nourishing  food  and  sufficient  plain 
clothing.  He  can  send  his  children  to  school. 
Unless  a  prolonged  or  serious  illness  befall  the 
familj^  he  can  pay  for  medical  attention.  If 
a  death  should  occur,  insin*ance  \A'ill  meet  the 
expense.  He  can  provide  some  simple  recrea- 
tion for  his  family,  the  cost  not  to  be  over 
$15.60  for  the  year.  If  this  cotton-mill  father 
is  given  employment  300  days  out  of  the  year, 
he  must  earn  $2  per  day  to  maintain  this  stand- 
ard. As  the  children  grow  older  and  the 
famil}^  increases  in  size  the  cost  of  living  will 
naturally  increase.  The  father  must  either 
earn  more  himself  or  be  assisted  by  his  young 
children."  - 

It  is,  therefore,  fair  to  conclude  that  from 
six  to  nine  hundred  dollars  per  year — two  to 
three  dollars  per  working  day — is  the  mini- 

'  Report  on  Condition  of  Women  and  Child  Wage-Earners 
in  the  U.  S.,  Vol.  16,  Family  Budgets,  Washington,  Gov't 
Print,  1911,  p.  245. 

'Supra,  pp.  153-153. 

[  35  1 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

mum  amount  necessary  to  enable  a  man,  wife 
and  three  children  to  maintain  a  normal  stand- 
ard of  living  in  the  industrial  sections  in  the 
Eastern  part  of  the  United  States. 

These  figures,  however,  are  meaningless  un- 
less they  can  be  supplemented  by  other  fig- 
ures showing  what  wages  are  actually  received. 
It  is  of  no  moment  to  us  in  this  discussion  to 
know  that  $3  per  working  day  will  maintain 
a  decent  standard  for  a  normal  family  unless 
we  know,  in  addition,  what  wages  are  being 
paid  to  wage  workers.  It  may  be  that  the 
great  majority  of  wage  earners  receive  more 
than  $3  a  day.  How  do  wages  actually  com- 
pare with  the  normal  standard  of  living? 

Within  a  stone's  throw  of  Greater  New 
York  lies  Perth  Amboy,  a  town  of  35,000  in- 
habitants. Most  of  the  men  work  in  the  clay 
pits,  so  that  the  expense  for  shoes  is  high. 
Rent  is  lower  than  in  New  York,  but  food, 
with  the  exception  of  chickens  and  eggs,  costs 
rather  more  than  on  the  East  Side.  In  1908 
there  was  a  strike  in  Perth  Amboy,  and  an 
investigation  showed  that  within  sight  of 
America's  Metropolis  men  w^ere  being  paid 
one  dollar  and  thirty-five  cents  a  day,  while 
[36] 


THE    HAGGARD    JNIAN 

in  South  River,  a  small  town  near  Perth 
Amboy,  wages  for  the  same  work  were  from 
ninety-five  cents  to  one  dollar  and  fifteen  cents 
a  day.  Writers  have  proclaimed  American 
prosperity,  and  students  have  written  of  the 
American  standard  of  work  and  life,  but 
here,  within  sight  of  the  center  of  American 
wealth,  were  bread  winners  struggling  to 
maintain  decency  on  from  ninety-five  cents  to 
a  dollar  and  thirty-five  cents  a  day — $290  to 
$415  a  year/ 

The  federal  government  and  a  few  states 
publish  some  wage  statistics  which  permit  of 
certain  conclusions  regarding  the  relation  be- 
tween a  normal  standard  of  living  and  the 
wages  paid  to  American  workmen.  A  sum- 
mary of  these  available  wage  statistics  of 
Massachusetts,  New  Jersey,  Kansas  and  Wis- 
consin shows  that  three-quarters  of  the  adult 
male  wage  earners  employed  in  the  industries 
of  the  New  England,  INIiddle  and  North  Cen- 
tral States  receive  a  wage  so  low  that  they  are 
unable  to  provide  the  necessaries  of  life  for 
a  wife  and  three  children;  the  wages  of  half 

^  A    Prosperity    Strike — A.    P.    Kellogg,    Charities    and    the 
Commons,  Dec.  12,  1908,  p.  4.10. 

[37] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

of  the  same  group  will  not  ^^rovide  a  decent 
living  for  more  than  two  children,  while  thirty 
per  cent,  receive  a  wage  that  will  not  provide 
adequately  for  more  than  a  single  child.  In 
the  face  of  such  conditions,  the  average  worker 
who  wishes  to  furnish  the  necessaries  of  life 
to  those  dependent  upon  him  will  be  unable  to 
maintain  the  population. 

Perhaps  you  may  think  these  statements  ex- 
treme, but  I  believe  that  I  can  prove  them. 
I  will  not  cite  the  instance  of  the  166,227 
anthracite  coal  miners  in  Pennsylvania,  whose 
average  wage  is  $503.85  annuall}',  nor  that 
of  the  171,987  bituminous  coal  miners  in  the 
same  state  whose  wage  averages  $525.79  a 
year;  neither  will  I  attempt  to  prove  my  con- 
tention by  the  $562.89  which  goes  to  each  of 
the  69,250  boot  and  shoe  workers,  and  the 
$439.34  annual  incomes  of  90,935  cotton  mill 
operatives  of  Massachusetts.  In  the  first  two 
industries  foreigners,  and  in  the  last  two 
women,  compete  fiercely,  forcing  down  the 
wage  far  below  a  level  of  decent  living.  I 
will  rather  take  my  illustrations  from  the  two 
leading  American  industries — railroading  and 
steel  making. 

[38] 


THE  HAGGARD  MAN 

It  is  a  well-recognized  fact  that  no  great 
industries  require  on  the  wliole  more  skill  and 
endurance  than  do  these  two,  yet  I  2)ro2:>ose 
to  show  that  even  in  these  t3'pieal,  high-paid 
American  industries  wages  are  so  low  as  thor- 
oughly to  justify  my  opening  statement.  In 
fact,  that  these  representative  industries  fail 
to  pay  a  familj^  suhsistence  wage  to  the  vast 
majority  of  their  employes. 

Each  year  the  Interstate  Commerce  Com- 
mission publishes  the  average  dailj^  wages  of 
about  a  million  and  a  half  railroad  employes. 
An  analysis  of  these  statistics  for  the  last 
available  year  (1909)  shows  that  of  the  entire 
number  employed  in  that  year  (1,502,823) 
seven  per  cent.  (114,199)  received  an  average 
wage  of  more  than  $3  a  day  ($900  a  j'ear)  ; 
that  42  per  cent.  (633,674)  received  from  $2 
to  $3  a  day  ($600  to  $900  a  year),  and  that 
51  per  cent.  (754,950)  received  from  $1  to  $2 
a  day— $300  to  $600  a  year.  The  average 
daily  wage  of  210,898  "Laborers"  was  $1.98 
per  day— $600  per  year,  while  of  320,762 
trackmen  the  average  wage  was  $1.38  per  day, 
or  $425.80  per  year.  It,  therefore,  appears 
that  nine-tenths  of  the  railroad  employes  of 
[39] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

the  United  States  receive  less  than  $900  a 
year;  that  more  than  half  receive  less  than 
$600  a  year;  while  the  laborers  and  trackmen, 
530,000  in  all,  are  paid  less  than  $600  a 
year.^ 

That  the  relative  wages  in  the  steel  indnstry 
are  almost  identical  is  clearh^  shown  by  the 
investigation  of  the  Pittsburg  Sm-vey  (1908) 
and  of  the  Federal  Government  into  the 
wages  in  the  South  Bethlehem  Steel  Works 
and  of  the  steel  industry  at  large.  The  re- 
port on  the  South  Bethlehem  investigation 
includes  a  complete  transcript  of  the  pay-rolls 
for  January,  1910,  and  covers  9,184  em- 
ployes. Of  this  number,  ten  per  cent,  received 
an  hourly  wage  rate  equivalent  to  more  than 
$900  per  year;  75  per  cent,  a  rate  equivalent 
to  less  than  $750  per  year;  60  per  cent,  re- 
ceived a  rate  equivalent  to  less  than  $600  per 
year,  while  the  wages  of  thirty  per  cent,  were 
less  than  $500  per  year."  The  Federal  Inves- 
tigation of  the  entire  industry,  made  in  1911, 

^  statistics  of  Railways — Interstate  Commerce  Com.,  Wash- 
ington, Gov't.  Print.,  1910. 

-  Report  on  Strike  at  South  Bethlehem  Steel  Works,  61st 
Congress,  second  session,  Senate  Doc.  551. 

[40] 


THE  HAGGARD  MAN 

shows   identical   conditions   for   employes   in 
all  parts  of  the  United  States.^ 

Thus,  in  both  steel  manufacturing  and  in 
railroading,  two  of  the  leading  American  in- 
dustries, the  same  proportion  of  workmen 
receive  more  than  $900  a  year  and  the  same 
proportion  less  than  $600  a  year.  These  sta- 
tistics are  strikinglj^^  corroborated  by  the  wage 
figures  published  by  INIassachusetts,  New  Jer- 
sey, Kansas,  and  Wisconsin — four  states 
which  furnish  the  best  wage  data.^ 

WAGES     OF     ADULT    MALES. 

Cumulative   Percentages. 

Massa-          New  Wis- 

chusetts        Jersey       Kansas  consin 

Yearly  Wages           Per  Cent.  Per  Cent.  Per  Cent.  Per  Cent. 

Less   than   $500 35                 42                 26  37 

Less    than      600 52                57                46  59 

Less   than     750 72                74                70  89 

Less  than   1,000 9;2                 91                 91  98 

$1,000  and  over   8                  9                  9  2 

The  available  authorities  are,  therefore,  in 
practical  agreement.  Nine-tenths  of  the 
w^orkers    receive    less    than    $900    annually; 

*  Report  on  Conditions  of  Employment  in  the  Iron  &  Steel 
Industry,  6:i?nd   Congress,  2nd   Session,  Senate   Doc.  301. 

-  Wages  in  the  V.  S.,  Scolt  Ncaring,  N.  Y.,  The  Macmillan 
Co.,  1911,  p.  210. 

[41] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

three-quarters  less  than  $750  and  half  less  than 
$600  per  year. 

These  wage  figures  cannot,  however,  be  ac- 
cepted as  stated.  They  represent  the  daily  and 
hourly  earnings  of  men  paid  by  the  day  or  by 
the  hour,  when  they  work.  But  at  times  these 
men  do  not  work.  In  ordinarily  prosperous 
years  the  average  wage  worker  is  disemployed 
through  sickness,  accident,  strikes,  and  lack 
of  orders,  about  one-fifth  or  one-sixth  of  his 
entire  working  time.  Once  in  ten  years  a 
panic  comes,  with  its  resulting  depression,  so 
that  for  months  together  men  work  on  half 
or  less  than  half  time.  From  the  wages  of 
railroad  employes,  a  deduction  of  twenty  per 
cent.,  and  from  those  of  the  steel  workers  a 
deduction  of  twenty-five  per  cent,  may  con- 
servatively be  made.^ 

Therefore,  I  conclude  as  I  began:  Three- 
quarters  of  the  workingmen  in  American  in- 
dustries cannot  provide  decently  for  more 
than  three  children;  half  of  them  cannot  pro- 
vide for  more  than  two;  while  the  wage  of 

*  Unemployment  in  the  U.  S.,  Scott  Nearing,  Quarterly- 
Publications,  American  Statistical  Association,  September, 
1909,  pp.   530-535. 

[42] 


THE  HAGGARD  MAN 

one-third  is  so  low  that  they  can  barely  make  / 
adequate  provision  for  a  single  child.  We  "^ 
prate  about  morality;  we  are  rich;  we  inveigh 
against  vice;  we  are  comfortable;  we  preach 
against  crime;  we  are  well  fed  and  housed; 
we  advocate  large  famihes;  but  we  forget  to 
pay  living  wages.  y 

Need  I  repeat  that  a  startling  discrepancy 
appears  between  the  cost  of  a  decent  living 
and  the  wages  of  American  workmen?  Need 
I  call  your  attention  to  the  opportunities  here 
presented  for  the  work  of  a  good  Samaritan? 
These  abnormal  conditions  reflect  themselves 
everywhere.  Pittsburg,  the  fountain  of  mil- 
lionaires, suffers  from  high  rents,  high  costs 
of  living,  and  abnormally  low  wages.  One 
Pittsburg  family,  consisting  of  a  man,  wife, 
his  brother,  and  three  children  and  four  board- 
ers, occupied  a  house  of  four  rooms,  one  of 
them  dark,  for  which  they  paid  fourteen  dol- 
lars a  month.  This  man,  who  had  been  in 
the  country  twelve  years,  was  still  earning  ten 
dollars  and  eighty  cents  a  week,  or  five  hun- 
dred dollars  a  year. 

Why  resort  to  wearisome  statistics?    What 
is  your  own  experience?    What  are  the  wages 
[  43  ] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

of  the  ash-man?  Two  dollars  a  day.  Of  the 
street  cleaner?  One  dollar  and  a  half.  Of 
the  trolley  man?  Two  dollars  and  a  quarter. 
Of  the  hack-driver?  Ten  dollars  a  week. 
How  much  does  the  butcher's  man  receive? 
Five  hundred  dollars  a  j^ear.  None  of  these 
workers  receives  more  than  two  dollars  and  a 
half  per  day,  and  most  of  them  receive  less 
than  two  dollars.  Reports  from  leading  au- 
thorities and  your  own  experience  confirm  the 
statement  that  there  are  tens  of  thousands  of 
men  struggling  to  support  and  rear  families 
on  wages  that  are  pitifully  inadequate. 

Men  do  not  gather  grapes  of  thorns,  nor 
do  underpaid  parents  rear  normal  children.  If 
the  statements  just  cited  be  true,  we  might 
expect  to  find  the  children  in  these  low-paid 
families  hungry. 

One  thorough  investigation  of  hungry  chil- 
dren, including  only  the  children  between  six 
and  sixteen  years,  has  been  made.  Here  are 
some  extracts  from  the  official  report  of  the 
investigation.  "Five  thousand  children  who 
attend  the  schools  are  habitually  hungry,'* 
while  ten  thousand  other  children  "do  not  have 
nourishing  food."  The  report  further  states 
[44] 


THE  HAGGARD  MAN 

that  "many  children  lack  shoes  and  clothing. 
Many  have  no  beds  to  sleep  in.  They  cuddle 
together  on  hard  floors.  The  majority  of  the 
indigent  children  live  in  damp,  unclean,  or 
overcrowded  homes,  that  lack  proper  ventila- 
tion and  sanitation.  Here,  in  the  damp,  ill- 
smelling  basements,  there  is  only  one  thing  re- 
garded as  cheaper  than  rent,  and  that  is  the 
life  of  the  child.  We  find  that  a  large  num- 
ber of  children  have  only  bread,  saturated 
in  water,  for  breakfast  day  after  day;  that 
the  noon  meal  is  bread  or  bananas,  and  an 
occasional  luxury  of  soup  made  from  pork 
bones;  that  children  often  frequent  South 
Water  Street,  begging  for  dead  fowl  in  the 
crates,  or  decayed  fruit ;  that  others  have  been 
found  searching  for  food  in  alley  garbage 
boxes."  ^ 

You  would  rather  enjoy  such  statements 
about  Calcutta,  or  Peking,  or  St.  Petersburg. 
They  would  give  an  added  feeling  of  satisfac- 
tion with  the  high  standard  of  the  American 
worldngman,  but  what  do  you  think  of  them 
when  they  refer  to  the  second  largest  city  in 

*  Report  of  Minutes,  Board  of  Education,  Chicago,  Oct.  21, 
1908,  pp.  4-5. 

[45] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

the  United  States — Chicago — the  metropolis 
of  the  Middle  West?  Fifteen  thousand  chil- 
dren in  Chicago  between  six  and  sixteen  who 
do  not  get  enough  to  eat! 

Chicago  is  not  alone.  Similar  investigations 
in  other  cities  reveal  the  same  conditions  of 
underfeeding.  Louise  Stevens  Bryant,  after 
an  exhaustive  study  of  the  subject,  states  the 
facts  regarding  underfeeding  in  the  United 
States.  The  first  investigation  was  made  in 
New  York  by  John  Spar  go,  w^ho  "confined 
his  attention  to  the  subject  of  the  usual  break- 
fasts eaten  by  school  children.  He  was  able 
with  the  cordial  cooperation  of  principals  and 
teachers  to  gather  fairly  reliable  information 
in  regard  to  the  breakfasts  of  12,800  children, 
in  sixteen  different  schools. 

"The  method  used  was  as  follows.  Each 
child  w^as  questioned  privately  by  the  class 
teacher  as  to  what  he  had  for  breakfast  that 
day.  If  he  reported  no  breakfast,  the  fact 
was  noted,  and  also  if  he  reported  an  inade- 
quate breakfast.  For  this  investigation,  an 
inadequate  breakfast  was  defined  as  one  not 
containing  any  of  the  following  articles: 
milk,  eggs,  meat,  fish,  cereal,  butter,  jam,  or 
[46] 


THE    HAGGARD    MAN 

fruit;  it  further  meant  one  consisting  of  cof- 
fee or  tea,  either  alone  or  with  bread  or  cake 
or  crackers.  Each  teacher  reported  to  the 
principal  the  number  of  children  with  no 
breakfast,  and  those  with  inadequate  break- 
fasts, omitting",  so  far  as  possible,  children  of 
fairly  good  circumstances  whose  lack  of  break- 
fast was  accidental  or  unusual." 

The  inquiry  revealed  the  following  facts: 
"of  12,800  children,  897,  or  nearly  8  per  cent., 
had  no  breakfast;  1,963  others,  or  over  15  per 
cent.,  had  inadequate  breakfasts.  This  made 
a  total  of  23  per  cent,  of  all  the  children  in 
those  schools  who  were  badly  fed,  so  far  as 
this  might  be  indicated  by  breakfast  alone." 

Mr.  Spargo  then  tried  to  find  out  what  sort 
of  lunches  the  children  had.  He  was  assured 
by  teachers  and  principals  and  by  his  own 
observation  that  many  children  did  not 
go  home  at  noon,  but  remained  playing  about 
the  school  yard,  with  no  lunch  at  all.  No 
exact  figures  were  gathered  on  this  point. 
"From  questioning  by  the  teachers,  it  was 
found  that  anywhere  from  10  to  20  per  cent, 
of  the  children  were  given  pennies  to  buy  their 
own  lunches.  He  watched  what  they  bought, 
[47] 


SOCIAL   RELIGION 

and  reports  this  special  illustration  as  a  fair 
example  of  their  choice  in  winter:  Fourteen 
children,  eight  boys  and  six  girls,  in  one  deli- 
catessen store,  bought,  seven  of  them  pickles 
and  bread,  four  of  them  pickles  alone,  two 
of  them  bologna  and  rye  bread,  and  one  pickled 
fish  and  bread.  On  a  summer  day  he  saw  a 
group  of  nineteen  buy,  six  of  them  pickles, 
two  of  them  pickles  and  bread,  six  ice  cream, 
two  bananas,  and  three  candy.  Mr.  Spargo 
found  that  another  way  the  lunch  pennies  go 
is  in  gambling,  especially  among  boys." 

"Beginning  with  the  year  1906,  medical 
inspectors  in  New  York  public  elementary 
schools  have  recorded  cases  of  malnutrition. 
During  these  five  years,  from  1906-1910,  in- 
clusive, in  a  total  number  of  860,728  exami- 
nations the  average  percentage  of  cases  found 
was  five.  This  means  that,  in  the  proportion 
of  one  in  twenty  cases  examined,  the  condition 
of  malnutrition  was  so  marked  that  it  was 
entered  on  the  official  records  as  one  of  the 
physical  defects  of  the  child. 

"In  1907  the  New  York  Committee  on  the 
Physical  Welfare  of  School  Children  found 
on  examination  of  1,400  typical  New  York 
[481 


THE  HAGGARD  MAN 

school  children  that  140,  or  10  per  cent., 
showed  marked  symptoms  of  malnutrition, 
and  visits  to  the  homes  showed  that  the  daily 
food  of  many  others  was  misatisfactory.  A 
few  months  after  the  first  examination  990 
of  these  children  were  reexamined  more  care- 
fully, and  of  these  128,  or  13  per  cent.,  were 
declared  to  be  suffering  from  malnutrition." 

"Finally,  in  the  early  part  of  1910,  the 
School  Lunch  Committee  made  a  special  ex- 
amination of  2,150  children  in  the  lower  grades 
of  two  New  York  schools,  and  found  283  of 
these,  or  13  per  cent.,  were  marked  cases  of 
malnutrition.  These  children  weighed  on  the 
average  nine  pounds  less  than  the  normal  for 
their  ages." 

"In  Philadelphia,  in  1909-1910,  a  special 
investigation  of  500  children  in  one  school 
in  a  poor  district,  including  a  medical  exami- 
nation and  a  visit  to  the  home  of  each  child, 
revealed  serious  underfeeding  in  119  cases, 
forming  24  per  cent,  of  the  whole. 

"In  Boston,  the  routine  medical  inspection 
of  all  children  in  1909  revealed  between  5,000 
and  6,000  cases  of  underfeeding  and  anemia, 
among  a  total  of  80,000  children. 
[49] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

"In  St.  Paul,  in  1910,  Dr.  Meyerding,  head 
of  the  Medical  Inspection,  made  a  special  ex- 
amination of  3,200  children  in  schools  frankly 
chosen  from  the  poorer  district.  He  found 
that  644,  or  20  per  cent,  of  the  whole,  showed 
marked  underfeeding. 

"In  Rochester,  in  1910,  Dr.  Franklin  Bock 
examined  15,157  children.  Of  these,  he  desig- 
nated 752,  or  5  per  cent.,  as  showing  evident 
lack  of  nutrition,  and  1,285  as  anemic. 

"As  a  general  conclusion  from  these  investi- 
gations it  seems  fair  to  place  the  probable 
number  of  seriously  underfed  school  children 
in  New  York  and  other  American  cities  where 
official  inquiries  have  placed  it  in  European 
cities — at  10  per  cent,  of  the  school  popula- 
tion." ^ 

Does  this  long  recital  of  statistics  weary 
you?  Think  how  the  work  of  our  schools  must 
weary  those  hundreds  of  thousands  of  children 
who  go  there  hungry,  yes,  hungry !  Hungry, 
in  the  richest  country  in  the  world — little  chil- 
dren who  have  not  had  enough  to  eat,  strug- 
gling to  master  their  school  problems.  Would 
you  have  thought  it  possible? 

^The  Psychological  Clinic,  April  15,  1913,  vol.  6,  pp.  34-37. 
[50] 


THE  HAGGARD  MAN 

Said  a  Chinese  sage  to  the  Cliristian  mis-  \ 
sionary,  "no  food,  no  love.  Found  your  gos- 
pel on  good  beefsteak."  The  situation  is  not 
a  whit  different  in  the  United  States.  We 
cannot  hope  to  erect  a  successful  educational 
system  on  empty  stomachs. 

"Ah,  yes,"  we  say,  "it's  too  bad,  but  it  can't 
be  helped,  for  the  fathers  all  drink."  That  is 
not  true.  The  fathers  do  not  all  drink.  Dr. 
Devine,  basing  his  statements  on  an  examina- 
tion of  five  thousand  poverty-stricken  families 
in  New  York  City,  concludes  that  intemper- 
ance is  responsible  for  17  per  cent,  of  the 
poverty,  while  unemployment  is  responsible 
for  70  per  cent,  of  it.^  But  suppose  Dr.  De- 
vine  is  wrong.  Suppose  that  intemperance  is 
the  cause  of  poverty  in  100  per  cent,  of  the 
cases,  what  matter?  There  are  the  children. 
At  every  cost  they  must  be  given  a  chance ;  they 
must  be  taken  out  of  contact  with  debauchery 
and  temptation;  thej'^  must  be  nourished, 
warmly  clothed,  and  carefully  housed,  and  thus 
permitted  to  lead  normal,  useful  lives.  There 
is  one,  and  only  one,  way  in  whicli  that  can 

*  Misery   and    Its   Causes,   E.   T.    Devine,   N.   Y.,  The  Mac- 
millan   Co.,   1909,   j).   117. 

[  rn  ] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

be  accomplished.  Their  fathers  must  be  paid 
living  wages. 

What  is  a  Hving  wage?  The  figure  agreed 
upon  by  the  New  York  experts  was  three 
dollars  a  day.  Shall  we  accept  that?  You 
may  believe  this  figure  too  high  or  too  low. 
Can  you  prove  your  contention?  At  all  haz- 
ards, let  us  decide  what  is  a  living  wage,  and 
then  see  that  every  man  gets  it.  The  nation 
needs  these  children,  not  low-browed,  stunted 
and  haggard,  but  normal  and  full  of  joy.  The 
payment  of  living  wages  lays  the  foundation 
for  normal,  joyous  lives. 

What  of  this  plenty?  Plenty  of  American 
hell !  A  hell  of  empty  stomachs,  if  not  of  tor- 
tured souls.  Do  we  feel  the  truth?  Can  we 
conceive  of  this  black  inferno  of  semi-starva- 
tion? The  seventy-two  meals  for  a  dollar  and 
a  half — bread  and  tea,  no  milk;  boiled  cab- 
bage; bread  and  molasses;  bread  and  tea,  no 
milk.  Here,  at  least,  is  the  glimmer  of  an 
opportunity  for  the  work  of  a  Good  Sa- 
maritan. 


[52  J 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE  MOTHERLESS  GIRL 

Underfeeding  is  producing*  low-browed  men, 
but  what  of  the  motherless  girl  of  whom 
Lowell  wrote? 

The  last  census  showed  about  five  million 
women  at  work  for  wages,  one-third  of  this 
number  living  away  from  home.  What  does 
it  cost  a  single  girl  to  live  decently  in  a  great 
city?  It  is  hard  to  answer  the  question  accu- 
rately, but  careful  estimates  have  been  made. 
A  girl  living  away  from  home  probably  needs 
ten  dollars  a  week  in  New  York  and  eight 
dollars  a  week  in  Philadelphia  to  provide  re- 
spectable clothes,  a  decent  room,  nourishing 
food,  and  legitimate  recreation.  How  do 
wages  paid  to  working  girls  compare  with  this 
standard?  What  is  the  relation  between  the 
amount  that  the  working  girl  needs  to  sujDport 
herself  in  decency  and  the  amount  that  she 
really  gets? 

[53] 


SOCIAL   RELIGION 

Last  year  the  shirtwaist  makers  of  New 
York  and  Philadelphia  struck.  Some  of  the 
girls  who  went  on  the  strike  were  earning  as 
much  as  twenty-five  dollars  a  week,  and  some 
of  them  were  earning  fifty  cents  a  day.  One 
little  Italian  girl  of  the  latter  class  was  ap- 
proached by  her  employer.  "You  won't  be 
able  to  live  if  you  stay  out  on  strike,"  said  he. 
The  child's  reply  was  terrible:  "Me  no  live 
vera  much  on  forta-nine  cent-a-day." 

What  are  the  average  wages  of  women  in 
industry?  A  recent  report  from  Wisconsin 
covers  7,297  female  employes,  whose  average 
wage  was  one  dollar,  five  and  a  half  cents  per 
day,  or  six  dollars  and  thirty-three  cents  a 
week.  In  one  industry,  the  manufacture  of 
fancj'^  articles,  215  women  made  an  average 
of  four  dollars  and  thirty-six  cents  per  week; 
868  others  employed  in  the  manufacture  of 
paper  made  only  five  dollars  and  seventy 
cents  per  week.  In  Pittsburg  80  per  cent. 
of  the  women  earn  less  than  seven  dollars 
a  week.  An  analysis  of  the  wages  of  women 
in  IMassachusetts,  New  Jersey,  Kansas,  and 
Yv^isconsin  shows  that  the  average  for  these 
states  is  below  seven  dollars,  while  three- 
[54] 


THE   MOTHERLESS    GIRL 

fourths  earn  less  than  ten  dollars,  and  nine- 
tenths  earn  less  than  twelve  dollars  per  week.^ 
So  illustrations  might  be  endlessly  multiplied. 
Common  experience,  however,  will  confirm  the 
statistical  record,  and  it  needs  no  argument  to 
convince  the  intelligent  public  that  in  the  ma- 
jority of  cases  the  weekly  wage  of  work- 
ing girls  in  great  cities  is  less  than  seven 
dollars. 

Perhaps  the  best  recent  summary  of  the  re- 
lation between  the  pay  of  working  women  and 
the  cost  of  living  for  them  is  presented  by 
Miss  Butler  in  a  study  of  the  saleswomen  in 
the  mercantile  stores  of  Baltimore. 

After  showing  that  wages  average  about 
seven  dollars  a  week,  Miss  Butler  says:  "The 
significance  of  this  wage  grouping  can  be  ap- 
parent only  when  considered  with  reference 
to  the  cost  of  living  in  Baltimore.  The  term 
*cost  of  living'  is  vague;  usage  has  extended 
its  meaning  to  cover  everything  from  the  'sub- 
sistence level'  to  the  amonnt  necessary  for 
maintaining  a  relatively  high  standard  of  life. 
As  used  in  this  connection,  it  means  the  sum 

*  Wages   in   the   United  States,   Scott   Nearing,   N.   Y.,  Tlie 
Macmillan  Co.,  1911,  p.  31:?. 

[  55  ] 


SOCIAL  RELIGION 

necessary  in  Baltimore  to  provide  for  an  indi- 
vidual, lodging  and  sufficient  food,  clothing, 
carfare  to  and  from  vv^ork,  and  a  small  margin 
for  sundries  such  as  medicine,  dentistry,  or,  on 
the  other  hand,  healthful  recreation." 

"The  cost  of  board  at  its  minimum  must,  in 
general,  be  taken  to  represent  the  cost  of  ob- 
taining lodging  and  sufficient  food;  as  to  de- 
tails, the  consensus  of  opinion  of  those  who 
have  lived  near  the  margin  can  be  the  only 
criterion.  A  tentative  schedule  for  Baltimore 
might  be  as  follows:  Board  and  lodging, 
$3.00;  clothing,  $2.00;  washing,  $.50;  carfare, 
$.60;  lunches,  $.60.  Total,  $6.70.  Boarding 
homes  for  working  women  are  few.  It  is  not 
customary  for  women  to  take  unfurnished 
rooms  and  prepare  their  own  meals.  Instead, 
they  take  a  room  and  their  meals  with  some 
family,  and  the  rate  in  families  seldom  falls 
below  $3.00  a  week. 

"Two  dollars  a  week  for  clothing  is  $100  a 
year.  This  may  seem  large,  but  we  cannot  esti- 
mate as  though  the  sum  were  in  hand  and  the 
possessor  a  competent  seamstress.  Were 
these  two  things  assured,  were  our  working- 
woman  compact  of  forethought,  self-restraint, 
[5Q] 


THE    MOTHERLESS    GIRL 

good  management  and  efficiency,  she  miglit 
even  manage  to  have  her  allowance  for  cloth- 
ing yield  her  a  surplus.  But  she  is  mediocre 
human  material,  for  the  most  part,  neither 
very  clever,  nor  very  comj^etent,  nor  fore- 
sighted  for  the  next  season's  wants.  Without 
a  first  nugget,  the  saving  of  small  sums  is  dif- 
ficult. From  week  to  week,  board  and  lodg- 
ing, carfare  and  sundries  eat  into  the  tiny 
capital,  and  prevent  continuous  accumulation 
of  a  portion  of  it.  The  need  of  to-day  looms 
larger  than  that  of  six  months  from  now,  and 
$2.00  a  week,  if  it  covers  this  week's  and  this 
season's  needs,  is  doing  well.  This  implies  the 
buying  of  ready-made  clothing,  the  buying  of 
some  things  by  instalments — an  expensive 
way,  but  apparently  inevitable  at  times  when 
no  capital  is  at  hand.  The  ordinary  working 
girl,  as  has  been  said,  is  not  a  seamstress  any 
more  than  she  is  a  capable  executive.  She 
neither  knows  how  to  sew  nor  wants  to  spend 
time  sewing.  Her  leisure  is  precious,  her 
weariness  extreme,  and  it  is  easier  to  buy 
things.  What  she  could  save  in  money  (not 
to  estimate  what  she  would  lose  in  buoyancy), 
if  she  made  her  own  clothing,  therefore,  caimot 
[571 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

modify  her  present  budget.  The  facts  must 
be  recognized  that  she  does  not,  as  a  rule, 
make  her  clothing,  nor  does  she  spend  her 
annual  allowance  for  clothing  as  a  lump 
sum. 

"That  some  money  should  be  spent  for  sun- 
dries is  no  less  essential  than  that  some  money 
should  be  spent  for  food.  This  item,  however, 
marks  the  difference  between  this  budget  and  a 
budget  based  actually  upon  the  cost  of  living 
at  the  subsistence  level.  In  the  latter  case, 
beyond  food  and  lodging  and  carfare,  there 
could  be  no  leeway.  There  could  be  no  doc- 
tor's bills,  no  medicine ;  there  could  be  no  post- 
age stamps  and  no  carfare,  except  to  and  from 
work;  above  all,  there  could  be  no  recreation. 
Life  would  be  without  social  content.  This 
is  the  program  for  home  workers  in  sweated 
industries.  Can  it  conceivably  or  desirably  be 
the  program  for  a  young  girl  at  the  beginning 
of  her  life?  We  should  welcome  a  generation 
of  such  vigor  and  admirable  self-control  that 
expenditure  for  illness  would  be  unnecessary, 
but  that  generation  has  not  yet  been  born  in 
this  age  of  the  world.  We  would  not,  how- 
ever, seek  so  to  limit  the  lives  of  the  workers 
[58] 


THE    MOTHERLESS    GIRL 

as  to  eliminate  recreation.  Were  we  to  at- 
tempt it,  we  should  be  attacking  both  health 
and  efficiency.  The  desire  for  recreation  is  as 
fundamental  as  the  necessity  of  work  and  the 
desire  for  food.  A  budget  which  in  any  meas- 
ure provides  for  a  sane  and  useful  existence 
must  admit  some  expenditures  other  than  those 
essential  for  the  mechanical  maintenance  of 
physical  life. 

"Admitting  these  premises,  we  may  assume 
that  $6.70  represents  the  minimum  cost  of  liv- 
ing for  a  workingwoman  in  Baltimore.  We 
know  that  some  workingwomen  live  on  less; 
we  know,  too,  that  more  could  live  on  less  if 
they  had  more  skill  in  doing  things  for  them- 
selves, or  clearer  ideas  of  economy.  Yet  we 
cannot  assume  the  possession  of  such  skill  and 
such  economy,  and  without  them  this  estimate 
approximates  the  minimum  cost  of  living. 
Eighty-one  jDer  cent,  of  the  women  employes 
in  Baltimore  stores  are  earning  less  than  this 
minimum  living  cost,  and  10  per  cent,  are 
earning  more.  For  an  industry  so  impor- 
tant among  those  that  employ  women,  an  in- 
dustry so  popular  among  women  workers  that 
it  sometimes  creates  a  shortage  in  factory 
I  59  ] 


SOCIAL   RELIGION 

districts,  opportunity  for  advancement  seems 
meager."  ^ 

Could  Miss  Butler  have  painted  a  clearer 
or  a  more  dispassionate  picture?  Could  she 
have  stated  the  issue  involved  more  fairly? 
The  minimum  of  decent  existence  for  a  single 
girl  in  Baltimore  is  $6.70,  and  in  the  mercan- 
tile establishments  four-fifths  of  the  girls  are 
paid  less  than  this  amount. 

Women  are  not  only  underpaid,  but  they 
are  frequently  over-worked.  For  example, 
weaving  has  always  been  done  by  women.  In 
the  early  stages  of  machinery  one  woman  man- 
aged one  or  perhaps  two  slowly  moving  looms. 
Then  improvements  gave  her  four  or  five 
looms  to  tend,  and  to-day,  with  the  invention 
of  the  automatic  shuttle,  each  woman  is  called 
upon  to  tend  from  twelve  to  sixteen  looms. 
Sixteen  looms  cover  a  large  floor  space,  and 
the  woman  must  hurry  from  loom  to  loom. 
As  a  result,  when  night  comes,  she  is  often 
too  exhausted  to  sleep.  Another  illustration 
comes  from  the  canning  industry.  In  the  can- 
ning factory  an  automatic  clutch  carries  cans 

*  Saleswomen    in   Mercantile    Stores,   E.    B.    Butler,    N.    Y. 
Charities  Pub.  Co.,  1912,  pp.  113-118. 

[60] 


THE    MOTHERLESS    GIRL 

of  baked  beans  past  a  girl  who  slips  a  small 
piece  of  pork  into  each  can.  The  endless  chain 
of  clutches  runs  fast,  and  the  girl  must  con- 
centrate every  atom  of  nervous  energy  on  the 
task  before  her  or  miss  her  can.  These  are  but 
typical  illustrations  of  the  methods  wliich  are 
used  to  speed  up  workingwomen. 

The  hours  of  workingwomen  are  long  and 
the  work  is  exacting.  The  atmosphere  of  fac- 
tory and  shop  is  close  and  stifling,  and  the  re- 
action from  work  is  sharp.  Did  you  ever  do 
a  hard  day's  work?  You  wanted  to  go  and 
relax  after  it  was  over.  These  girls  want  to 
relax,  too,  but  they  have  no  opportunity  to  do 
so.  The  cost  of  decent  hving  is  far  above  their 
wages,  and  the  reaction  from  their  overwork, 
without  legitimate  means  of  recreation,  leads 
inevitably  to  the  dance  halls,  which  are  the 
open  door  to  the  lowest  forms  of  vice. 

Surrounded  by  your  atmosphere  of  social  re- 
spectability, you  pity  these  girls;  you  are  infi- 
nitely above  them.  How  much  above?  Sup- 
pose you  started  to  work  at  six-thirty  every 
morning;  stood  on  your  feet  all  day,  every 
w^orking  day  in  the  year;  came  home  at  night 
to  a  lonely  attic  room,  fried  a  bit  of  bacon  and 
[CI] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

ate  bread  and  bananas,  and  then  retired,  to 
start  at  six-tliirty  and  do  it  over  again,  six  days 
a  week,  three  hundred  and  seven  days  a  year. 
Suppose  you  waited  on  splendidly  dressed 
women  and  sweet-faced  boys  and  girls;  sup- 
pose, just  for  the  sake  of  argument,  that  you 
were  like  other  people  and  loved  artistic  clothes 
and  children,  and  wanted  recreation,  expan- 
sion, life.  When  you  looked  at  your  paltry 
six  dollars  a  week,  what  would  you  do?  Would 
you  go  mad  or  would  you  go  to  the  dance  halls 
and  perhaps  ultimately  on  the  street?  You 
are  above  these  girls,  but  how  much?  How 
much?  That  is  a  question  which  you  only  can 
answer. 

Recently  there  have  been  in  the  newspapers 
and  magazines  numerous  articles  on  prostitu- 
tion and  the  white-slave  trade.  Did  you  ever 
think  that  there  might  be  a  connection  between 
underpaid,  overworked,  motherless  girls  and 
the  tens  of  thousands  of  women  who  patrol 
the  streets  of  our  great  cities  offering  their 
bodies  for  hire? 

A  handsome,  well- formed  girl  of  seventeen 
went  to  work  in  a  restaurant.  After  a  time 
she  noticed  that  a  flashily  dressed  man,  who  ate 
[62] 


THE    MOTHERLESS    GIRL 

daily  at  her  table,  was  paying  her  marked  at- 
tention. Her  wages  were  low,  her  life  mo- 
notonous, she  longed  for  recreation,  and  the 
man  offered  her  an  opportunity.  He  took  her 
to  the  amusement  parks,  and  eventually  intro- 
duced her  to  some  fashionable  friends  who  kept 
a  dance  hall  in  which  were  phonographs,  gay 
music,  and  all  the  flash  and  glare  of  a  city  re- 
sort. The  detail  of  the  case  is  unimportant. 
The  man  kept  his  hold  on  the  girl,  and  finally 
seduced  her  under  promise  of  marriage.  Then, 
for  a  sum  of  money,  he  transferred  her  to  a 
white  slaver  in  a  neighboring  city,  where  she 
was  forced  against  her  will  to  ply  her  shameful 
trade. 

Immigrant  girls  reach  America  only  to  be 
sent  through  employment  offices  or  directed  by 
paid  agents  to  houses  of  prostitution.  Al- 
though the  Federal  report  covered  only  those 
known  as  public  prostitutes,  the  numbers  run 
into  the  thousands  each  year.^  One  girl  of 
fifteen  was  sent  from  Austria  to  the  United 
States,  where  her  relatives  failed  to  meet  her. 
She  was,  therefore,  thrown  upon  her  own  re- 

'  Report  on  tlic  Iiui)ortalioii  of  Women  for  Immoral  Pur- 
poses, 61st  Congress,  3nd  Session,  Senate  Document    196. 

[63] 


SOCIAL   RELIGION 

sources,  and  drifted  from  one  position  to  an- 
other, beginning  as  a  chambermaid  in  a  second- 
class  hotel,  and  ending  as  a  prostitute  in  a  low 
resort.    A  professional  prostitute  at  15! 

These  two  illustrations  are  typical.  They 
might  be  duplicated  a  thousand  times,  and  they 
clearly  indicate  where  we  place  the  social  pre- 
mium. Had  these  girls  remained  virtuous  they 
might  have  earned  six  dollars  a  week  in  a  de- 
partment store  or  factory,  but,  by  plying  their 
illicit  trade,  they  can,  if  successful,  make  ten 
or  fifteen  dollars  in  a  single  night.  We  Chris- 
tians of  the  twentieth  century  offer  to  an  hon- 
est, hard-working  girl  six  dollars  a  week,  bad 
food,  miserable  lodging,  and  no  opportunity 
for  recreation;  but  to  the  girl  who  is  willing 
to  sacrifice  her  virtue,  a  splendid  income  for  a 
time,  with  leisure,  recreation,  and  all  that 
money  can  buy. 

What  think  you  of  a  society  which  places 
such  a  choice  before  destitute  women  and  un- 
developed girls  ?  How  many  human  beings  in 
this  prosperous  nation  are  forced  to  face  that 
choice  ?  How  many  make  the  choice  that  leads 
them  to  the  streets  ?  One  authority  states  that 
there  are  two  hundred  thousand  professional 
[64] 


THE   MOTHERLESS   GIRL 

prostitutes  in  the  United  States.  What  mat- 
ter a  few  odd  thousand  either  way?  The  facts 
are  none  the  less  hideous.  Would  you  know 
the  truth  at  first  hand?  Apply  to  any  police- 
man or  cab  driver  or  messenger  boy  in  the 
great  cities  and  they  will  direct  you  to  the  near- 
est house  of  prostitution.  Perhaps  they  will 
accompany  you  and  receive  the  fee  which 
comes  to  them  for  every  customer  they  bring. 
The  Broadway  and  the  red  light  district  of 
every  city  are  patrolled  day  and  night  by  fallen 
women.  You  cannot  walk  two  hundred  yards 
after  nightfall  along  one  street  in  the  City  of 
Brotherly  Love  without  meeting  ten  or  a  dozen 
women,  each  of  whom  is  for  sale  at  a  dollar 
and  a  half — an  illustration  that  might  be  dupli- 
cated at  Willi  in  any  great  city  of  the  land.  If 
you  wish  confirmation  of  these  statements,  read 
Jane  Addams's  "New  Conscience  and  an  An- 
cient Evil."  You  will  be  sickened  and  en- 
lightened. 

The  letting  of  women's  bodies  for  hire  has 
become  an  organized  trade,  from  which  the  in- 
vestors reap  huge  profits.  As  a  vested  inter- 
est, organized  vice  is  in  league  with  the  police 
and  with  the  political  ring — sending  repeaters 
[C5] 


SOCIAL   RELIGION 

to  the  polls,  harboring  thugs  and  criminals,  and 
paying  hush  money  to  the  men  higher  up. 
Read  G.  Bernard  Shaw's  "Mrs.  Warren's  Pro- 
fession," or  Reginald  Wright  Kauffman's 
"Plouse  of  Bondage".  Hideous,  are  they  not? 
You  think  them  overdrawn  ?  Then  turn  to  the 
official  reports  made  by  commissions  of  repre- 
sentative citizens  in  all  parts  of  the  country. 

In  Chicago  thirty  of  the  leading  citizens 
were  appointed  on  the  Chicago  Vice  Commis- 
sion, which  made  a  thorough  inquiry  into  the 
matter,  reporting  conditions  which  are,  to  say 
the  least,  startling  to  the  average  complacent 
citizen.  They  found  that  the  business  of  hir- 
ing women's  bodies  was  "a  coixunercialized 
business,  organized  to  the  highest  point  of  effi- 
ciency, with  cash  registers  and  modern  efficient 
bookkeeping,  even  with  tickets,  where  you  get 
$3.50  worth  of  service  for  $3.00,  and  have  the 
ticket  punched  as  the  service  is  rendered.  All 
sorts  of  business  methods  are  used,  all  sorts  of 
artificial  schemes  resorted  to,  in  addition  to  the 
service  rendered,  to  increase  the  income  and 
bring  in  money." 

Walter  T.  Summer,  a  member  of  the  Chi- 
cago Vice  Commission,  says:  "We  were  able 
[66]   " 


THE    MOTHERLESS    GIRL 

to  tell  the  amount  of  service  rendered  in  each 
house  of  prostitution  by  these  women.  We 
were  able  to  tell  how  many  men  were  served. 
We  were  able  to  get  absolute  figures  from 
the  records,  so  that  I  can  say  to  you  with  cer- 
tainty that  a  woman  in  a  house  of  prostitu- 
tion must  render  service  to  15  men  every  24 
hours,  and,  in  times  of  convention,  or  other 
large  gatherings,  25,  30,  50,  75,  and  even  100, 
and,  therefore,  we  know,  the  earnings  range 
from  $25  to  $400  a  week.  We  know  that 
5,999,000  men  were  rendered  service  in  the 
city  of  Chicago  by  1,108  prostitutes  each  year, 
and  that  through  this  commercialized  vice  there 
was  paid  $16,000,000  to  these  1,108  prostitutes. 
This  did  not  cover  the  whole  5,000  women 
which  we  considered  a  conservative  estimate  of 
the  number  who  are  plying  their  trade  in  this 
business." 

Glaring  enough  as  facts,  are  they  not?  Note 
Dr.  Summer's  method  of  relating  them  to 
causes :  "The  United  States  Government  three 
weeks  ago  gave  out  figures  showing  that  the 
department  store  girl  earns  $6.12  a  week  if 
she  lives  at  home,  and  $7.32  if  she  lives  away 
from  home.  She  must  ])av  $4.00  or  $5.00  a 
167  1   * 


SOCIAL   RELIGION 

week  for  board  alone.  She  comes  into  contact 
constantly  with  people  of  far  greater  income 
than  her  own,  and  she  strives  to  keep  up  ap- 
pearances with  them.  She  gets  into  the  clan- 
destine group,  considering  that  she  can  in- 
crease her  capitalization  $5,000  or  $25,000,  or 
perhaps  $50,000  by  giving  up  her  virtue.  She 
feels  almost  forced  to  do  this,  unless  she  has 
got  what  so  many  thousands  of  girls  do  pos- 
sess, thank  God,  a  religious  character,  to  stand 
up  against  these  awful  temptations.  The 
question  is  not,  'Why  do  girls  go  wrong?'  but 
rather,  'Why  do  not  more  girls  go  wrong?'  " 
"I  would  like  to  say  to  men  that  I  am  not  so 
enthusiastic  about  all  the  reforms  that  are  com- 
ing wath  woman  suffrage,  and  yet  I  do  believe 
this,  that  when  women  obtain  the  franchise, 
as  I  hope  they  are  going  to  obtain  it,  they  will 
stand  up  and  change  the  situation  which  per- 
mits men  to  exploit  women  in  the  most  vicious 
industry,  commercialized  to  a  point  of  highest 
business  efficiency ;  and  they  will  stand  up  and 
do  more  than  men  have  ever  dared  to  do,  who 
have  followed  the  line  of  least  resistance  and 
have  said,  'Put  it  somewhere  in  a  segregated 
district;  let  disease  of  one  kind  be  permitted, 
[68] 


THE   MOTHERLESS   GIRL 

and  then  forget  it.'  The  women  will  do  some- 
thing to  help  their  own  sex.  A  girl  who  goes 
down  is  very  often  hungry  for  the  kind  word 
of  a  friend  at  the  right  time.  She  falls  a  vic- 
tim of  the  men  who  have  not  even  a  stroke  of 
sportsmanship,  but  go  into  the  boarding  houses 
deliberately  intending  to  hunt  down  a  defense- 
less girl,  a  child  of  poverty,  and  send  her 
down  deeper  and  deeper,  until  she  gets  into 
the  house  of  prostitution.  She  is  arrested 
from  time  to  time,  while  he  goes  free  and 
walks  the  streets  as  a  romancer.  I  tell  you 
calmly  it  is  not  just.  We  are  never  going  to 
reach  the  situation  until  we  can  instil  into  men 
that  standard  of  morals,  of  honor,  which  has 
been  spoken  of  here,  making  them  feel  the  in- 
stincts of  chivalrj^  of  humanity,  and  getting 
them  to  realize  that  to  fight  for  a  woman's 
purity  is  indeed  the  occasion  for  a  valiant 
fight."  ' 

Vice  is  a  business.  The  exploitation  of 
women's  bodies  is  an  occupation — an  im- 
mensely lucrative  occupation  bringing  in  huge 

^Quotations  from  a  spcedi  made  by  Dr.  Summer  before  the 
City  Club  of  Philadelphia,  City  Club  Bulletin,  April  6,  1913, 
vol.  5,  pp.  135-138. 

[69] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

returns  on  the  investment.  What  do  you  think 
of  it? 

Is  there  any  opportunitj^  here  for  the  good 
Samaritan?  We  draw  back  in  horror,  but  do 
not  these  wretched  creatures  need  our  help? 
They  have  fallen  among  thieves;  they  are  our 
neighbors.  They  may  come  nearer  to  us  than 
that,  for  they  will  meet  our  untutored  boys  ere 
they  have  passed  into  the  realm  of  manhood, 
and  lead  them  into  lives  of  debauchery,  disease, 
and  shame. 

Motherless  girls?  Yes,  motherless  and 
friendless  too.  Born  into  a  progressive, 
Christian  societj^ — into  a  land  of  prosperity 
and  plenty;  reared  amid  depraved  surround- 
ings; half  educated,  in  subjects  which  neither 
increase  their  efficiency  nor  prepare  them  to 
live  their  lives  in  the  world;  and  then,  at  an 
early  age,  sent  out  to  earn  their  daily  bread, 
taking  upon  their  girlish  shoulders  and  narrow 
chests  a  part  of  the  burden  of  an  industrial 
civilization — working  in  your  factories  and 
stores;  taking  your  starvation  wages;  sewing 
the  buttons  on  your  shirts;  making  your 
cand}^;  canning  your  vegetables;  boxing  your 
crackers;  and  rolling  your  cigars;  working 
[70] 


THE   MOTHERLESS    GIRL 

during  an  eleven  hour  day  and  a  fiftj'^-eight 
hour  week  to  heap  at  your  feet  the  luxuries 
which  you  can  neither  appreciate  nor  enjoy, 
and  then,  weary  of  it  all,  throwing  aside  their 
seven  dollars  a  week,  donning  ostrich  plumes, 
fur  coats,  and  gaudy,  flimsy  dresses,  and  going 
out  in  the  street  to  sell  the  only  thing  which 
will  bring  them  a  living  wage — their  woman- 
hood. 

You  hear  in  your  churches  of  the  damnation 
of  hell ;  but  did  you  ever  dream  of  the  damna- 
tion of  this  earth?  The  darmiation  in  your 
own  City?  The  damnation  of  that  industry 
upon  which  your  comfortable  home  is  founded? 
You  may  never  have  heard ;  you  may  not  know ; 
but  there,  at  your  very  feet,  before  your  eyes, 
are  women,  in  your  own  likeness,  who  have 
heard,  and  known,  and  experienced  a  damna- 
tion that  exceeds  all  powers  of  description. 

You  have  heard  these  words  ?  Then  you  too 
know  of  it  now.    What  will  you  do? 

We  read  of  hunger  and  oppression  in 
Russia,  and  straightway  we  are  filled  with 
righteous  indignation  and  we  burn  with  a  de- 
sire to  succor  those  unfortunates.  We  send 
our  millions  to  China,  to  India  and  to  Africa 
[71] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

to  convert  and  save  the  heathen.  Conversion? 
Salvation?  Does  America  offer  no  field? 
These  underpaid  men;  that  wretched  woman; 
those  starving  children.  Is  there  no  opportu- 
nity here  for  conversion,  for  salvation?  ]\Iust 
the  Good  Samaritan  journey  into  a  far  coun- 
try to  find  a  harvest  of  wretched  bodies  and 
troubled  souls?  I  tell  you,  no!  Here,  at  the 
very  doors  of  our  whited  sepulchres,  are  hag- 
gard men  and  wretched  women  crying  aloud 
for  the  oil  and  ^vine  of  brotherly  assistance. 
We  cannot  refuse  their  appeal;  we  dare  not 
take  the  proceeds  of  their  exploited  toil  and 
bind  up  the  wounds  of  Australian  aborigines 
or  Terra  del  Fuegan  savages.  Would  we  cast 
a  mote  out  of  our  brother's  eye?  Behold  a 
great  black  festering  beam  is  in  our  own. 


[72] 


CHAPTER   V 
THE   FACTORY   CHILD 

The  fathers  are  "haggard,"  the  motherless 
girl  is  pushed  to  the  verge  of  misery  and  ruin, 
but  that  is  not  the  full  measure  of  our  iniquity, 
for  we  do  not  stop  until  the  children  are  forced 
to  enter  the  maelstrom  of  industry,  where  they 
earn  their  daily  bread  in  the  sweat  of  their 
young  faces.  You  see,  we  carry  our  trans- 
gressions even  "to  the  least  of  these." 

You  have  often  heard  of  child  labor;  you 
are  opposed  to  it  in  theory,  yet  if  you  realized 
what  it  meant  in  practice,  you  would  not,  for 
an  instant,  tolerate  its  existence.  Let  me  tell 
you  some  of  the  things  I  have  seen  in  the 
world  of  working  children. 

One  bitter  March  morning  the  snow  eddied 

down  from  the  sky  and  swirled  around  the 

corner    of    a    Pennsylvania    silk    mill    near 

Scranton.    In  the  lea  of  the  corner,  her  thin 

[73] 


SOCIAL   RELIGION 

shawl  wrapped  about  her  head  and  shoulders, 
stood  a  child  who  looked  scarce  thirteen.  Her 
face  was  weary,  though  she  had  just  hurried 
from  bed  into  her  clothes  and,  after  gulping 
down  her  breakfast,  had  run  to  the  mill,  "So's 
not  to  get  docked  for  bein'  late."  Half-past 
six  came,  but  it  might  be  fifteen  or  even  twenty 
minutes  before  the  doors  opened  to  let  the 
"night  shift"  depart  and  the  "day  shift"  enter. 
She  was  one  of  120,000  working  children  in 
Pennsylvania.  I  questioned  her  to  see  what 
her  life  really  meant. 

"How  old  are  you?" 

"Fourteen." 

"Fourteen?  You  look  awfully  small  for 
fourteen.  How  long  have  you  worked  in  this 
mill?" 

"Three  years  and  a  half." 

"Well,  how  old  were  you  when  you  started?" 

"Thirteen." 

When  she  began  work,  this  child  knew  that 
the  legal  limit  for  working  children  was  tliir- 
teen ;  meanwhile  an  act  of  assembly  had  raised 
the  legal  age  to  fourteen ;  she  knew  these  two 
facts,  but  her  knowledge  of  mathematics  was 
not  sufficient  to  enable  her  to  prove  that  thir- 
[74] 


THE   FACTORY  CHILD 

teen  plus  three  and  one-half  did  not  make 
fourteen. 

At  last  the  night  shift  "came  off"  and  this 
bit  of  humanity,  who  had  worked  three  and  a 
half  j^ears  between  her  thirteenth  and  four- 
teenth birthdays,  walked  stolidly  into  the  mill 
to  stand  for  eleven  hours  in  front  of  a  spin- 
ning frame,  watching  the  whirring  machinery 
and  the  gliding  threads. 

She  was  an  ordinary  child  laborer  who  will 
one  day  be  the  mother  of  Pennsylvania's  future 
citizens,  and  what  citizens!  She  was  but  an 
example  of  the  underfed  children  who  are 
working  in  every  great  city  of  the  United 
States.  She  was  an  "individual  case" — yet  to 
her,  and  to  her  children,  if  she  have  any,  her 
individual  case  may  involve  ignorance,  over- 
work and  misery.  You  see  how  much  child 
labor  means  to  the  individual  child. 

In  some  parts  of  the  anthracite  regions  of 
Pennsylvania  the  silk  mills  work  night  and 
da}^  because  it  is  much  cheaper.  As  one  man- 
ufacturer said,  "That  way  you  get  yoin*  money 
for  3  per  cent."  One  night  an  old  man  and 
a  little  boy  walked  out  on  the  porch  of  a  miner's 
shanty  wliicli  stands  across  the  street  from  one 
[  7o  ] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

of  these  mills.  The  old  man  leaned  down  and 
kissed  the  boy's  forehead.  "Good  night, 
father,"  said  the  boy,  and,  taking  his  dinner 
pail  from  the  porch,  he  walked  across  the  street, 
and  into  the  lighted  mill.  Twelve  hours  later 
he  stumbled  sleepily  across  the  same  street, 
to  his  bed.  He  had  done  his  "turn"  on  the 
night  shift,  away  from  home,  with  some  rough 
women  and  some  rougher  men.  Children  who 
work  "night  shift"  do  not  participate  in  the 
duties  and  pleasures  of  home  life.  Hence  child 
labor  eliminates  the  child  laborer  from  the  life 
of  the  home. 

A  boy  of  eighteen  had  been  working  for 
seven  years  in  a  soft  coal  mine.  "Yes,  I  can 
wi'ite — only  my  name,  though.  Read?  Sure, 
I  read  the  paper  most  every  day,  but  it  is  slow 
work." 

"Didn't  you  go  to  school!" 

"To  school?  Did  I?  Well  I  guess  I  did. 
It  was  in  one  door  and  out  of  the  other.  How 
is  a  feller  going  to  school  if  he  starts  at  eleven 
in  the  mines?" 

The  school  is  interested  in  child  labor,  since 
children  who  go  early  to  work  seldom  trouble 
books,  and  are  not  troubled  by  them. 
[76] 


THE   FACTORY  CHILD 

On  a  mill  in  eastern  Pennsylvania  hung  two 
sign  boards : 

SMALL     GIBtS  SMALL     BOTS 

WANTED  WANTED 


For  years  these  signs  hung  there,  while  the 
manufacturer  secured  the  merchandise  for 
which  he  advertised.  Every  morning  children 
came  trooping  along  the  streets  into  the  mill, 
many  of  whom  answered  well  to  the  descrip- 
tion of  the  sign.     They  were  "small." 

Said  the  bargain  hunter.  "Is  that  the  cheap- 
est grade  you  have?"  "No'm,"  replied  the 
sales  girl.  "These  are  sixteen  cents."  And 
the  frail  little  cash  girl  who  took  the  money, 
and  the  peaked  sweat  shop  worker  who 
finished  the  garments,  both  helped  to  drop  the 
price  to  "sixteen  cents." 

Tilings  are  not  really  cheap  because  they 
cost  little  money.  Immense  sums  of  life  and 
joy  are  added  to  the  cost  of  production  of  the 
goods  which  are  made  by  the  child  laborer. 
When  you  buy  "cheap  goods"  and  "bargains" 
that  are  cheap  because  they  are  child-made,  you 
are  in  part  responsible  fnr  the  sacrifice  of  child 
[77] 


SOCIAL   RELIGION 

life  that  entered  into  the  manufacture  of  those 
goods. 

Of  such  child  workers,  who  have  not  yet 
reached  their  sixteenth  birthday,  there  are 
nearly  two  million  in  the  United  States.  Truly, 
Sissy  Jupe,  you  do  well  to  test  the  prosperity 
of  this  most  prosperous  of  all  nations  by  ask- 
ing who  has  the  money  and  whether  any  of  it  is 
yours,  for  in  its  nation-wide  distribution  the 
child  laborers,  at  least,  have  been  neglected. 

Children  are  at  w  ork.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
whatever  on  that  score,  since  the  facts  of  child 
labor  are  published  in  every  official  document 
which  treats  of  factories  and  factory  inspec- 
tion. Need  I  pause  to  remind  you  that  child 
labor  is  disastrous  to  the  child,  to  the  society, 
and  to  the  industry  in  which  he  plays  a  part? 
Perhaps  these  things  have  not  been  empha- 
sized as  they  should.  Perhaps  you  still  believe 
that  it  is  an  act  of  Providence  which  sends 
children  into  the  mill  at  fourteen. 

You  may  say,  "Oh,  he's  well  grown,  the  work 
won't  hurt  him  any."  That  is  an  attitude  very 
commonly  taken  by  people  who  are  interested 
in  the  continuance  of  child  labor,  and  by  those 
who  know  very  little  or  nothing  of  the  subject. 
[78] 


THE   FACTORY  CHILD 

But  what  does  "well  grown"  mean?  If  it 
means  "partly  grown"  the  statement  is  cor- 
rect, since  children  of  fourteen  are  rapidly 
changing  in  body  and  mind — expanding  into 
manhood  and  womanhood.  What  shall  be 
their  environment  and  inspiration  during  this 
expanding  period?  Enthusiasm,  play,  and 
life,  or  grind,  monotony,  and  degeneration? 
You  determine  the  answer  to  that  question  by 
your  indifference  or  opposition  to  those  meas- 
ures which  are  advanced  for  the  elimination  of 
the  wrongs  for  w^hich  child  labor  is  responsible. 

You  know  that  in  most  of  the  states  chil- 
dren of  fourteen  are  permitted  to  work  for 
nine,  ten  or  even  eleven  hours  a  daJ^  These 
children  are  still  growing.  A  number  of  them 
applying  for  work  certificates  in  Chicago  were 
recently  measured,  with  the  following  result: 
^Tlie  boys  of  fifteen  years  receiving  permission 
to  work  averaged  nearly  a  foot  taller  and  about 
four  pounds  heavier  than  the  boys  of  four- 
teen; and  the  girls  of  fifteen  years  averaged 
nearly  one-half  foot  taller  and  about  fifteen 
pounds  heavier  than  the  girls  whose  ages 
averaged  fourteen  years. 

So  from  fourteen  to  sixteen  boys  and  girls 
[79] 


SOCIAL   RELIGION 

are  still  growing.  During  this  period,  when  the 
body  is  plastic,  there  are  two  forces  constantly 
at  work,  the  one  calling  the  child  to  higher 
ideals  of  life  and  gi'owth,  and  the  other  tend- 
ing to  brutalize  him  for  the  sake  of  the  few 
dollars  which  his  unformed  hands  will  earn. 
All  of  his  future  is  conditioned  on  that 
struggle;  if  the  forces  of  the  ideal  conquer, 
the  child  will  develop  through  proper  channels 
into  a  fully  rounded  man;  if  the  forces  of  the 
dollar  win,  the  child  life  is  set  and  hardened 
into  a  money-making  machine. 

Child  labor  is  a  process  of  mind  stunting. 
First  the  child  is  removed  from  the  possibihty 
of  an  education — taken  from  the  school  and 
placed  in  the  factory,  where  he  no  longer  has 
an  opportunity  to  learn.  Then  he  is  subjected 
to  monotonous  toil,  for  long  hours,  often  all 
night,  in  unwholesome  places,  so  that  his  body 
and  mind  harden  into  the  familiar  form  of  the 
unskilled  workman. 

Entering  the  workroom  with  adults  of  all 
types  of  morahty  and  immorahty  the  child 
ceases  to  be  a  child  in  knowledge  while  it  is 
still  a  child  in  ideas.  There  is  no  home  influ- 
ence or  school  influence  to  ward  off  the 
[80] 


THE  FACTORY  CHILD 

dangers ;  no  mother  or  teacher  to  point  out  the 
hidden  rocks.  The  child  is  pilot  and  captain, 
but  how  easily  influenced  and  misguided! 

All  factory  life  is  not  immoral  and  immoral- 
ity is  not  an  essential  element  in  factory  life, 
but,  under  present  conditions,  factory  life  and 
immorality  too  often  run  hand  in  hand. 

Play  is  the  accompaniment  of  youth.  Man 
has  his  playtime:  it  is  childhood.  INIan  has 
his  work  time:  it  is  adult  life.  The  cliild  can- 
not hope  to  escape  all  work,  but  the  greater 
part  of  its  life  must  be  devoted  to  play  if  the 
functions  of  the  adult  life  of  work  are  to  be 
well  fulfilled.  Child  labor  does  not  necessar- 
ily mean  stunting  and  degradation,  but  the 
probabilities  are  that  child  labor  will  mean  child 
deterioration. 

So  much  may  be  said  of  the  undesirability 
of  transmitting  to  the  future  children  stunted 
and  worn  by  premature  toil.  There  are  two 
other  ways  in  which  child  labor  injures  the 
society  of  the  present  and  thus  indirectly  that 
of  the  future.  In  the  first  place,  it  helps  to 
destroy  family  life,  and,  in  the  second  place, 
it  helps  to  promote  delinquency. 

In  some  localities  all  of  the  members  of  the 
[81] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

family  work  in  the  mill.  Many  such  instances 
are  furnished  in  the  South,  where  industry  is 
developing  for  the  first  time.  There  it  is  cus- 
tomary for  the  children  to  work  with  both  of 
the  parents,  and  if  one  parent  remains  out- 
side of  the  mill  it  is  apt  to  be  the  father. 
Again  and  again  writers  on  the  family  and 
home  life  emphasize  the  premature  independ- 
ence from  family  control  of  the  child  wage 
earner.  Miss  Jane  Addams  tells  of  a  work- 
ing girl  who  was  being  anxiously  watched  by 
the  Hull  House  authorities.  The  girl  had  a 
good  home  and  a  hard-working,  conscientious 
mother,  but  she  was  gradually  being  led  into 
worse  and  worse  ways  by  the  bad  company  that 
she  kept  on  the  streets  at  night.  Finally  a  pro- 
test was  made  to  the  girl's  mother.  "Why  do 
you  allow  your  daughter  to  run  the  streets  at 
night?  Don't  you  know  what  she  is  getting 
into?"  they  asked  her.  The  mother  was  heart- 
broken, and  replied  that  she  feared  to  say  any- 
thing to  her  daughter,  because  she  contributed 
to  the  family  income  and  would  leave  home  if 
crossed  in  her  wild  whims.  The  girl's  attitude 
was  plainly  expressed  when  she  said,  "^ly  Ma 
can't  say  anything  to  me — I  pay  the  rent." 
[82] 


THE   FACTORY  CHILD 

The  standards  of  child  work  are  very  low, 
as  any  one  who  has  visited  industrial  establish- 
ments will  have  observed.  Generally,  the 
greater  the  proportion  of  women  and  children 
in  an  establishment,  the  worse  the  conditions 
of  the  light,  air,  and  sanitation.  INIen  rebel. 
Women  and  children  seldom  complain,  except 
to  one  another.  Thus  the  child  laborer  is  gen- 
erally educated  to  be  a  low  standard  adult 
laborer. 

The  standard  of  the  community  can  be  main- 
tained only  bj^  maintaining  a  high  standard  of 
home  life.  The  high  standard  of  home  life 
depends  for  its  existence  and  maintenance 
upon  the  standard  of  the  father  and  the 
mother.  The  father  must  have  the  capacity 
to  earn  for  his  children  a  good  living ;  he  must 
likewise  have  the  mental  development  and  the 
development  of  character  which  will  enable 
him  to  set  for  them  a  high  standard  example. 
The  absence  of  these  qualities  in  the  father 
almost  inevitably  disrupts  the  home. 

But  what  of  the  mothers?  The  influence  of 
the  father  upon  family  life  is  of  the  utmost 
importance,  but  it  is  insignificant  as  compared 
with  the  influence  of  the  mother.    Tlie  father 

r  8;3 1 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

is  usually  away  from  home,  while  the  mother 
spends  the  greater  portion  of  her  time  in  the 
home.  Hence  it  is  with  her  that  the  children 
come  into  most  intimate  contact  and  hers  is 
by  far  the  most  important  influence  upon  their 
lives. 

What  part  does  the  factory  play  in  the  fu- 
ture lives  of  these  home  makers  and  home 
keepers? 

The  women  who  enter  a  factory  at  the  age 
of  twelve  and  spend  the  years  from  twelve  to 
twenty  inside  of  four  dark,  dirty  walls,  amid 
whirring  machines,  usually  have  not  the  physi- 
cal stamina  necessary  to  bring  strong  children 
into  the  world.  As  Dr.  Davies  of  Lancaster, 
Pennsylvania,  a  great  woman-employing 
center,  puts  it:  "These  factory  girls  fade  at 
an  early  age,  and  then  they  cannot  discharge 
the  functions  of  mothers  and  wives  as  they 
should."  In  the  second  place  a  girl  who  has 
spent  her  life  in  the  factory  is  usually  un- 
trained in  the  maintenance  of  a  home.  Factory 
life  is  exacting — there  is  always  excitement — 
the  excitement  of  new  people,  if  not  of  new 
things.  There  is  a  wide  difference  between 
this  high  strung,  factory  life  and  the  quiet 
[84] 


THE  FACTORY  CHILD 

routine  of  a  properly  conducted  home,  so  that 
the  change  from  one  to  the  other  is  difficult  to 
make.  Then,  too,  there  are  a  thousand  things 
which  are  learned  incidentally  by  the  girls  who 
grow  up  at  home,  but  which  never  become  a 
part  of  the  education  of  a  factory  child.  There 
are  arts  of  cooking  and  of  cleaning,  arts  of 
caretaking  and  home-making  that  come  only 
from  the  actual  contact  with  these  problems  in 
the  home.  An  eleven-hour  day  in  the  factory 
makes  impossible  any  proper  training  for  home 
duties. 

The  unity  of  family  life  can  be  maintained 
only  by  trained  mothers  and  capable  fathers; 
mothers  who  will  make  inhabitable  homes  to 
the  extent  of  their  means,  and  fathers  who  will 
use  every  effort  to  provide  the  means  with 
which  to  make  the  home  inhabitable.  Factory 
work  for  cliildren  goes  far  to  thwart  both 
ideals,  by  making  of  the  boy  an  unskilled 
worker,  incapable  of  earning  large  means,  and 
by  making  of  the  girl  a  wife  and  mother,  in- 
capable by  knowledge  or  training  of  doing  her 
duty  by  her  children,  her  home,  or  her  husband. 

On  the  other  hand,  child  labor  injures  so- 
ciety by  helping  to  promote  delinquency.  The 
[85] 


SOCIAL   RELIGION 

child,  particularly  the  boy,  who  is  thrown  out 
upon  the  world  too  early  in  life  and  made  to 
face  its  responsibilities,  is  overwhelmed  with  its 
bigness  and  wearied  by  its  never  changing 
monotony.  He  seeks  relief  for  his  strained 
nervous  system  in  some  kind  of  activity  which 
leads  ultimately  to  the  door  of  the  police  court. 

Need  I  proceed  further?  I  have  shown  you 
that  child  labor  injures  the  individual  child 
besides  playing  a  large  part  in  the  destruc- 
tion of  home  unity.  Did  time  permit  I  might 
point  out  that  child  labor  has  an  equally  de- 
structive effect  upon  industry.  But,  already, 
enough  has  been  said  to  convince  you  that  here, 
indeed,  is  one  of  the  thieves,  who  are  setting 
upon  American  children,  robbing  them,  wound- 
ing them,  and  leaving  them  half  dead. 

While  Jesus  taught  His  disciples  He  uttered 
no  more  solemn  judgment  than  this:  "Whoso- 
ever shall  offend  one  of  these  little  ones  that 
believeth  in  Me,  it  were  better  for  him  that  a 
mill  stone  were  hanged  about  his  neck  and 
that  he  were  cast  into  the  depths  of  the  sea." 
Nevertheless,  in  defiance  of  His  warning,  we 
offend  not  one,  but  hundreds  of  thousands 
every  working  day  in  the  year.  Those  little 
[86] 


THE   FACTORY   CHILD 

children  who,  in  the  words  of  Jesus,  ''arc  the 
kingdom  of  Heaven"  are  forced  on  this  earth 
to  labor  for  their  daily  bread. 

I  have  seen  these  children  working — I  have 
been  in  the  breakers  where  the  boys  pick  the 
slate  from  the  coal  in  an  atmosphere  so  filled 
with  dust  that  they  were  forced,  on  a  bright 
summer  day,  to  w-ear  lamps  on  their  hats  in 
order  to  see  the  coal  at  their  feet ;  I  have  been 
in  the  mines  and  seen  children  of  twelve  work- 
ing all  day  long,  cut  off  from  daylight  and 
fresh  air;  I  have  gone  into  box  factories  at 
Christmas  Time,  where  the  girls  began  their 
work  at  seven  in  the  morning,  finishing  at  eight 
or  nine  in  the  evening;  I  have  seen  children 
preparing  the  dainty  candies  which  attract  you 
in  beautiful  store  windows;  I  have  been  with 
the  messenger  boj^s  all  night,  as  they  went  from 
one  house  of  ill- fame  to  the  next;  I  have 
M^atched  the  exhausted  faces  of  the  cash-girls 
in  our  great  department  stores,  as  they  hurried 
about  in  the  August  heat;  I  have  seen  these 
children  laboring,  picking,  mining,  making 
boxes  and  candy,  and  carrying  messages  and 
cash  for  you.  You  received  the  benefits — you 
may  even  have  taken  the  dividends  which  these 
[87  1 


SOCIAL   RELIGION 

children  were  earning.  If  you  did  not  buy  the 
products,  and  take  the  dividends  from  their 
toil,  you  at  least  stood  by  while  the  legislature 
refused  to  enact  effective  laws  for  the  protec- 
tion of  working  children. 

Good  Samaritans,  nearly  two  millions  of 
America's  futm-e  citizens  cry  aloud  to  you  for 
assistance.  They  have  been  set  upon  at  the 
outset  of  life's  journey,  robbed  of  their  play- 
time, and  left  to  labor  in  their  helplessness  in 
an  inferno  of  grinding  wheels,  of  snapping 
clutches  and  gears.  Spiritually  wounded  and 
half  dead  they  demand  your  assistance  in  the 
name  of  the  future.  Will  you  ever  heed  their 
appeal? 


[88] 


CHAPTER  VI 
DEVOURING  WIDOWS'   HOUSES 

Those  who  offended  the  "little  ones"  might 
better  have  been  drowned  in  the  depths  of  the 
sea,  but  those  who  devoured  widows*  houses 
and  then  for  pretense  made  long  prayers  were 
to  receive  "greater  damnation."  Yet  land 
speculation,  mercilessly  forcing  up  city 
rents,  is  daily  devouring  not  widows'  houses, 
but  widows'  food.  The  widows  can  no  longer 
afford  to  own  the  houses — but  as  renters  they 
must  deprive  themselves  of  the  necessaries  of 
life  to  meet  the  exacting  requirements  of  twen- 
tieth century  landlordism. 

Not  only  the  necessaries  of  life,  but  the  de- 
cencies of  living  must  be  dispensed  with,  until 
the  wage  earner's  family  lives  crowded  into  a 
narrow  room,  dark,  ill-ventilated — the  lurking 
place  of  disease.  You  are  a  firm  believer  in 
national  prosperity?  What  do  you  think  of  a 
row  of  houses,  near  one  of  the  great  steel  mills 
[  89  1 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

of  Pittsburg,  from  which  such  a  description  as 
the  following  can  be  secured: 

"In  one  apartment  a  man,  his  wife  and  baby 
and  two  boarders  slept  in  one  room,  and  five 
boarders  occupied  two  beds  in  an  adjoining 
room.  .  .  .  Not  one  house  in  the  entire  set- 
tlement had  any  provision  for  supplying  drink- 
ing water  to  its  tenants.  .  .  .  They  went  to 
an  old  pump  in  the  mill  yard — 360  steps  from 
the  farthest  apartment,  down  seventy-five 
stairs.  This  town  pump  was  the  sole  supply 
of  drinking  water  within  reach  of  ninety-one 
households  comprising  568  persons.  .  .  .  An- 
other row  of  one-family  houses  had  a  curious 
wooden  chute  arrangement  on  the  back 
porches,  down  which  waste  water  was  poured 
that  ran  through  open  drains  in  the  rear  yard 
to  the  open  drain  between  this  row  of  houses 
and  the  next.  .  .  .  They  carried  other  things 
beside  waste  water — filth  of  every  description 
was  emptied  down  these  chutes,  for  these  six 
families  and  three  families  below  on  the  first 
floor  had  no  closet  accommodations  and  were 
living  like  animals."  '    Low  wages  prepare  the 

^  Painter's  Row,  Elizabeth  Crowell,  Charities  and  the   Com- 
mons, Feb.  6,  1909,  vol.  21,  pp.  899-910. 

[90] 


DEVOURING  WIDOWS'   HOUSES 

ingredients,  low  standards  mix  the  poison,  and 
a  civilized  society  strives  to  assimilate  boys  and 
girls  who  grow  up  in  houses  that  are  a  disgrace 
to  civilization. 

Such  congestion — such  crowding  together — 
is  not  confined  to  Pittsburg.  New  York  pre- 
sents by  far  the  most  abnormally  congested 
conditions  of  any  American  city.  In  1905 
there  were  thirty-eight  blocks  on  INIanhattan 
Island  in  which  more  than  1,000  persons  were 
living  per  acre.  In  Chicago  there  is  an  acre 
density  on  221  acres  of  206  persons  per  acre, 
while  St.  Louis  has  forty-eight  blocks  averag- 
ing 180  persons  per  acre.  The  density  of  pop- 
ulation in  the  most  congested  of  Manhattan 
blocks  is  4,000  times  greater  than  that  of  the 
State  of  New  York  as  a  whole. ^ 

People  may  conceivably  live  1,000  per  acre 
and  still  maintain  decent  conditions  of  exist- 
ence, since  a  stable,  varied  diet  of  good  food, 
with  light,  ventilation  and  sanitation,  might 
easily  offset  most  of  the  bad  results  of  such 
congested  living.  INIere  congestion  per  acre 
does  not  present  a  serious  problem — it  is  the 
evils  accompanying  acre  congestion  that  chal- 

*City  Planning,  Benjamin  C.   Marsh,  New  York,   1909,  p.  G. 

[91] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

lenge  the  attention  of  those  interested  in  social 
reform. 

Men  and  women  in  the  great  tenements  suf- 
fer, not  because  of  proximity  to  their  neigh- 
bors, but  because  the  tenement  construction  ex- 
ckides  adequate  air  supply,  and  prevents  the 
entrance  of  sunlight  into  many  dark  corners. 

Have  you  ever  seen  a  seven-story  East  Side 
tenement  ?  The  front  is  usually  inartistic ;  and 
sometimes  it  is  shabby.  By  day  the  fire  escapes 
are  decorated  with  flowers,  cooking  utensils, 
lumber  and  children,  and  by  night  with  bedding 
and  humanity.  You  pass  through  a  narrow 
entrance  to  the  back  of  these  tenements,  reach- 
ing a  bare  court  paved  with  flags  or  brick  and 
overhung  by  fire  escapes  and  clothes-lines.  You 
enter  the  dark,  ill-smelling  hallways,  and  pass 
from  floor  to  floor — stumbling  over  squalid 
children,  and  making  your  way  with  difliculty 
to  the  roof,  where  you  look  over  a  great  ex- 
panse of  roofs  and  chimneys,  broken  at  inter- 
vals by  courts,  streets  and  air  shafts. 

Between  each  pair  of  tenements  is  a  shaft, 

perhaps  four  feet  wide  and  thirty  feet  long, 

extending  to  the  ground.    Into  the  shaft,  the 

tenants,  whose  rooms  have  no  other  outlet, 

[92] 


DEVOURING  WIDOWS'  HOUSES 

dump  their  refuse.  The  tenement  is  a  walled- 
up  town,  grotesque,  gloomy,  hideous. 

The  overcrowding  in  the  private  houses  of 
Pittsburg,  about  which  I  spoke  a  moment  ago, 
was  surpassed  by  the  overcrowding  among  the 
single  men  in  the  Slavic  lodging  houses,  where 
beds  stood  as  close  as  the  floor  space  would 
permit,  men  sleeping  on  the  floor,  two  shifts 
using  the  same  bed,  one  shift  by  day  and  an- 
other by  night.  Sometimes  the  beds  are 
"double  deckers" — built  with  one  bed  above 
and  one  bed  below  on  the  same  frame.  Any 
device  is  employed  which  will  reduce  rent,  even 
though  it  involves  loss  of  vitality  or  of  life 
itself. 

This  overcrowding  among  the  steel  workers 
of  Pittsburg  is  paralleled  by  the  congestion  in 
New  York  construction  camps.  Bmiks  are 
built  in  tiers,  and  men  are  huddled  together 
in  unventilated  or  ill-ventilated  buildings  with- 
out sanitary  conveniences,  or  even  sanitary 
necessities.  "The  simplest  standards  which 
military  history  shows  are  essential  in  hand- 
ling such  artificial  bodies  of  people  are  grossly 
violated." 

In  winter  fuel  is  expensive,  so  that  the  tene- 
[93] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

ment  is  run  on  a  basis  of  strict  economy.  The 
door  is  opened  when  necessary — the  windows 
not  at  all.  The  air  grows  denser  with  each 
succeeding  day  until,  toward  spring,  one  un- 
accustomed to  such  atmosphere  finds  even  a 
visit  to  the  room  unbearable. 

Summer  finds  the  conditions  even  less  tol- 
erable. Windows  and  doors  are  opened,  but 
no  air  circulates.  Men,  women  and  children, 
huddled  together,  in  the  warm  spaces,  two, 
three,  four  or  even  five  to  a  small  room,  soon 
exhaust  the  oxygen,  and  are  then  forced  to 
breathe  the  polluted  air.  Are  you  surprised 
that  tuberculosis  rages?  Do  you  wonder  that 
these  people  are  often  idle,  shiftless,  ineffi- 
cient? Not  only  their  food,  but  their  hous- 
ing means  low  vitality. 

I  spoke,  a  moment  ago,  of  the  air-shafts 
which  were  built  into  the  tenements.  Imagine, 
on  a  hot  summer  night,  sleeping  in  a  room 
which  opened  into  the  air-shaft  five  stories 
below  the  top  of  the  shaft,  ^vith  no  circulation. 
One  might  as  well  sleep  in  an  oven. 

You  would  consider  the  dwellers  on  the  air- 
shafts  in  a  precarious  situation.  What  would 
you  say  of  those  who  were  sleeping  in  a  room 
[94] 


DEVOURING   WIDOAVS'   HOUSES 

which  opened  into  another  room,  which,  in 
turn,  opened  on  the  air-shaft  and  had  no  other 
means  of  ventilation?    Yes,  such  rooms  exist. 

Would  you  know  some  of  the  facts  of  the 
housing  problem  in  New  York — the  Metrop- 
olis of  the  West?  Listen  to  this  statement  by 
one  of  the  leading  authorities  on  the  subject. 

"The  conditions  in  New  York  are  without 
parallel  in  the  civilized  world.  In  no  city  of 
Europe,  not  in  Naples  nor  in  Rome,  neither 
in  London  nor  in  Paris,  neither  in  Berlin, 
Vienna  nor  Buda  Pesth,  not  in  Constantinople 
nor  in  St.  Petersburg,  not  in  ancient  Edin- 
burgh nor  modern  Glasgow,  not  in  heathen 
Canton  nor  Bombay  are  to  be  found  such  con- 
ditions as  prevail  in  modern,  enlightened, 
twentieth  century,  Christian  New  York. 

"In  no  other  city  is  the  mass  of  the  work- 
ing population  housed  as  it  is  in  New  York, 
in  tall  tenement  houses,  extending  up  into  the 
air  fifty  or  sixty  feet,  and  stretching  for  miles 
in  every  direction  as  far  as  the  eye  can  reach. 
In  no  other  citj'  are  there  the  same  appalling 
conditions  with  regard  to  lack  of  light  and  air 
in  the  homes  of  the  poor.  In  no  other  city 
is  there  so  great  congestion  and  overcrowding. 
[95  1 


SOCIAL   RELIGION 

In  no  other  city  do  the  poor  so  suffer  from 
excessive  rents;  in  no  city  are  the  conditions 
of  city  life  so  complex.  Nowhere  are  the 
evils  of  modern  life  so  varied,  nowhere  are  the 
problems  so  difficult  of  solution.  .  .  . 

"We  have  to-day  the  tenement  house  system 
prevalent  throughout  New  York  as  the  chief 
means  of  housing  the  great  part  of  the  city's 
population,  over  two-thirds  of  the  people  liv- 
ing in  multiple  dwellings ;  we  have  to-day  over 
100,000  separate  tenement  houses;  we  have  a 
city  built  up  of  four  and  five-story  buildings, 
instead  of  two-story  and  three-story  ones;  we 
have  over  10,000  tenement  houses  of  the  hope- 
less and  discredited  'dumb-bell'  type  with  nar- 
row 'air-shafts'  furnishing  neither  sunhght  nor 
fresh  air  to  the  thousands  of  people  living  in 
the  rooms  opening  on  them;  w^e  have  over 
20,000  tenement  houses  of  the  older  type  in 
which  most  of  the  rooms  are  without  light  or 
ventilation;  we  have  over  100,000  dark  unven- 
tilated  rooms  without  even  a  window  to  an  ad- 
joining room;  we  have  80,000  buildings,  hous- 
ing nearly  3,000,000  people,  so  constructed  as 
to  be  a  standing  menace  to  the  community  in 
the  event  of  fire,  most  of  them  built  "s^dth 
[96] 


DEVOURING  WIDOWS'  HOUSES 

wooden  stairs,  wooden  halls  and  wooden 
floors,  and  thousands  built  entirely  of  wood. 

*'Over  a  million  people  have  no  bathing 
facilities  in  their  homes;  while  even  a  greater 
number  are  limited  to  the  use  of  sanitary  con- 
veniences in  common  with  other  families,  with- 
out proper  privacy ;  over  a  quarter  of  a  million 
people  had  in  the  year  1900  no  other  sani- 
tary conveniences  than  antiquated  yard  priv- 
ies ;  and  even  to-day  2,000  of  these  privy  sinks 
still  remain,  many  of  them  located  in  densely 
populated  districts,  a  source  of  danger  to  all 
in  the  neighborhood,  facilitating  the  spread  of 
contagious  disease  tlirough  the  medium  of  the 
common  house-fly."  ^ 

Perhaps  those  facts,  curtly  stated  in  so 
many  hundreds  of  thousands,  surprise  you — 
they  may  even  prove  of  some  interest.  Could 
you  see  the  things  which  the  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands so  lamely  represent,  neither  surprise  nor 
interest  would  satisfy  you.  You  would  act. 
A  young  lady  came  with  her  mother  to  a  great 
Eastern  city  to  do  some  shopping.  Incident- 
ally, she  intended  to  look  at  some  of  the  social 

*  Housing  Reform,  Lawrence  Veiller,  N.  Y.  Charities  Pub. 
Co.,  1910,  pp.  7-11. 

[97] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

conditions  about  which  she  had  read.  She  was 
a  sensitive  girl,  sincere  and  well  meaning.  She 
wanted  to  know  whether  the  things  which  she 
had  read  were  true,  so  she  approached  a 
friend — a  physician — on  the  subject. 

"I  should  like  to  see  the  tenements,  doctor," 
she  explained. 

The  doctor  protested,  but  the  girl  insisted. 
At  last  he  acquiesced. 

"To-morrow  at  ten,"  he  said. 

The  next  day,  at  ten,  they  went  to  visit  one 
of  the  doctor's  patients.  Turning  from  the 
main  street,  into  a  side  street,  they  passed 
under  a  low  arch  into  a  court,  ill-paved,  and 
vile  smelling.  The  girl  put  on  a  brave  front, 
and,  in  spite  of  her  qualms,  went  into  a  house, 
up  two  pairs  of  broken  stairs,  along  a  dark 
hallway  to  a  closed  door. 

"Are  you  all  right?"    the  doctor  asked. 

His  companion  nodded.  The  doctor  turned 
the  knob  and  they  both  entered  the  room,  the 
doctor  smiling  and  cheerful,  the  girl  ^^ade  eyed 
and  silent. 

In  one  corner  a  single  candle,  set  on  a 
broken  saucer,  gave  a  dim,  unsteady  light. 
The  room  had  no  exit  to  the  open  air,  but 
[98] 


DEVOURING  WIDOWS'   HOUSES 

there  was  a  transom  over  the  door  into  the  hall- 
way, and  another  transom  looking  into  what 
seemed  to  be  a  lighter  room  beyond.  On  the 
bed,  covered  by  a  ragged  quilt,  lay  a  mother 
with  her  three  weeks  old  baby  at  her  breast. 
In  one  corner  huddled  two  children,  the  old- 
est of  perhaps  three  years.  Beside  the  bed 
there  were  two  chairs,  an  old  bureau  on  which 
the  candle  stood,  an  oil  stove  and  a  small  table. 

The  doctor  spoke  a  few  words  to  the  mother, 
and  then  turned  to  address  a  remark  to  his 
companion.  One  look  at  her  sufficed.  He 
brought  his  visit  to  an  abrupt  close,  and  hur- 
ried her  into  the  open  air. 

"Two  long  breaths,"  he  said  encourag- 
ingly. 

For  repty  she  turned  her  staring  eyes  to  him, 
asking: 

"Do  people  really  live  that  way?" 

"Yes,"  he  answered.  "The  father  has  tuber- 
culosis so  badly  that  he  can  work  only  two 
or  three  days  a  week.  When  the  baby  is  a 
little  older,  the  mother  will  work  again.  Then, 
when  they  have  paid  their  debts,  they  can  hire 
a  better  room." 

The  tears  started  to  the  girl's  eyes.  She 
[  01)  1 


SOCIAL   RELIGION 

dropped  her  veil  hurriedly.  "Let  us  go 
home,"  she  begged. 

They  went.  On  the  way  she  said  nothing. 
When  they  reached  her  hotel,  and  found  her 
mother,  she  held  out  her  hand  to  the  doctor. 

"Good-bye,"  she  said.  "I  will  not  do  any 
shopping.  We  are  going  home  to-morrow. 
If  some  people  have  to  live  that  way,  I  have 
clothes  enough." 

That  girl,  in  an  instant,  grasped  a  truth 
of  vast  significance.  While  others  lacked,  she 
must  be  content  with  enough.  Perhaps,  if 
you  had  seen  the  thing  as  she  saw  it,  in  all 
of  its  loathsome  surroundings,  you,  too,  might 
have  revolted  as  she  did.  Yes,  you  can  see 
such  things.  In  New  York  City  alone  there 
are  100,000  rooms  which  have  no  exit  to  the 
open  air.  Into  these  rooms  the  sunlight  never 
penetrates,  and  the  darkness  which  exists  there 
furnishes  a  breeding  place  for  the  germs  of 
tuberculosis  and  other  diseases.  It  is  in  the 
dark,  filthy  corners  of  these  tenement  rooms 
that  the  disease  germs  most  frequently  lurk. 

Is  it  any  wonder  that  investigators  of  social 
conditions  have  succeeded  in  establishing  a 
very  definite  connection  between  congestion 
[100] 


DEVOURING  WIDOWS'  HOUSES 

and  mortality?  Are  you  surprised  that  in  these 
quarters  where  food,  sanitation,  sunlight  and 
even  fresh  air  are  lacking  the  death  rate  is 
sometimes  five  times  as  high  as  in  the  more 
healthy  quarters  of  the  city? 

During  August,  1908,  719  babies  died  in 
Chicago  from  diarrhoeal  diseases.  A  map 
with  a  dot  on  it  for  each  death  shows  the  high- 
est mortality  rate  in  the  wards  where  conges- 
tion is  most  prevalent.  Congestion  and  infant 
mortality  go  hand  in  hand,  though  whether 
they  be  cause  and  effect  it  is  impossible  to  de- 
termine, because  in  the  same  district  "insani- 
tary plumbing  and  lack  of  health  conveniences 
do  their  deadly  work.  It  is  the  destination  of 
the  poorest  milk  sold  in  the  city.  It  is  where 
streets  are  cleaned  least  often  or  not  at  all; 
where  stalest  bread  and  oldest  meat  are  sold." 
To  these  quarters,  "in  the  dusk  of  evening, 
little  children  with  shawls  over  their  heads  and 
market  baskets  on  their  arms  return  with  their 
prizes  from  the  city  dumps  and  the  garbage 
barrels  of  the  market  streets."  ^ 

Here,  in  tliis  prosperous  America,  we  can- 

^  On  the  Trail  of  the  White  Hearse,  S.  C.  Kingsley,  Survey, 
Aug.   14,  1909,  p.   685. 

[  101  ] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

not  tell  accurately  what  the  problem  of  conges- 
tion is,  and  what  effects  it  is  having,  or  will 
ultimately  have,  upon  those  who  live  in  con- 
gested neighborhoods.  We  have  not  even 
troubled  ourselves  to  take  an  accurate  measure 
of  our  plenty.  Suppose,  in  the  course  of  the 
next  ten  years,  that  we  discover  what  the  con- 
ditions really  are  in  congested  neighborhoods. 
Meanwhile  I  can  only  refer  you  to  the  work 
that  has  been  done  across  the  sea — in  Glasgow, 
Liverpool,  Berlin,  For  years,  human  beings 
were  huddled  there  "so  many  brace  to  the  gar- 
ret," until  their  living  began  to  tell  on  the 
size  and  stamina  of  the  Army  recruits.  Then 
the  governments  acted.  Their  military  was  at 
stake!  One  investigation  followed  another, 
until  the  Parliamentarj'^  Committee  on  Physi- 
cal Deterioration  presented  its  report  to  the 
English  peoi^le  in  1905,  proving  conclusively 
that  there  were  lowered  physique  and  vitality; 
that  they  existed  in  their  most  vii-ulent  forms 
in  the  most  congested  districts;  that  an  inti- 
mate relation  could  be  established  between  con- 
gestion and  disease,  as  well  as  between  con- 
gestion and  mortality,  and  that,  further,  the 
children  from  the  congested  districts  seemed 
[102] 


DEVOURING  WIDOWS'   HOUSES 

to  be  gi'owing  into  anaemic  men  and  women. 
Do  you  wonder  that  the  European  govern- 
ments have  torn  down  squalid  hovels  and 
erected  sanitar}-  dv/ellings?  Yet  they  have 
done  these  things  because  their  soldiers  were 
smaller  in  size. 

We  have  a  few  scattering  facts  about  the 
effects  of  congestion  upon  the  populations  of 
American  cities.  In  so  far  as  comparison  is 
possible,  they  confirm  the  European  statistics, 
yet  they  are  only  sufficient  to  indicate  the  need 
of  a  more  thorough  investigation. 

Do  you  wonder  that  men  are  haggard?  Are 
you  surprised  to  learn  that  girls  leave  the  in- 
conveniences and  indecencies  of  their  tenement 
homes  to  live  on  the  street?  How  different 
would  be  your  actions  if  the  ugly  problem 
were  presented  to  you  in  all  of  its  grim  as- 
pects? You  Samaritans,  can  you  see  how  con- 
gestion sets  upon  these  travelers  who  are  jour- 
neying through  the  tenement  sections  of 
American  cities? 


[  103  1 


CHAPTER   VII 

THE   LONG  DAY 

Was  industry  made  for  man,  or  was  man 
made  for  industry?  Jesus  said  that  the  Sab- 
bath, an  institution  looked  upon  as  sacred  by 
the  authorities  of  His  time,  was  made  for 
man :  perhaps  the  same  thing  is  true  of  modern 
industry.  In  either  case,  the  matter  is  worthy 
of  consideration.  If  man  was  made  for  in- 
dustry, then  he  must  bow  down  before  it,  as 
the  Aztecs  bowed  down  before  their  Sun  God, 
worshipping,  sacrificing,  rendering  homage  to 
a  superior  force  which  was  created  to  dominate 
and  to  destroy.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  if  it 
be  true,  as  some  are  now  bold  enough  to  main- 
tain, that  industry  is  not  a  deity  but  a  serv- 
ant; if  it  be  true  that  industry,  the  work  of 
men's  hands,  should  of  right  be  the  servant 
and  not  the  master  of  men;  if  it  be  true  that 
human  welfare  can  be  conserved  through  the 
[104] 


THE  LONG  DAYi 

subjection  of  industry  to  the  service  of  man- 
kind, then  it  may  finally  appear  that  man's 
duty  is  not  completed  until  he  has  subjugated 
industry  and  placed  it  so  completely  under 
his  control  that  no  one  may  suffer  because  of 
industrial  tyranny. 

And  the  long  day?  you  will  ask.  Yes,  the 
long  day  is  one  of  the  most  hideous  survivals 
of  a  past  age  during  which  men  regarded 
themselves  as  the  servants  of  industrial  pro- 
cesses, when  wealth  was  a  god,  and  welfare 
was  overlooked  or  forgotten. 

There  was  once  a  time  when  it  was  neces- 
sary for  men  to  work  twelve  hours  a  day  be- 
cause in  no  other  way  could  they  produce 
wealth  in  sufficient  quantities  to  maintain  life. 
That  time  has  past.  In  its  stead  has  dawned 
a  day  of  industrial  achievement  which  throws 
at  the  feet  of  man  a  vast  surplus  of  wealth — 
sufficient  to  maintain  him  against  want — a  sur- 
plus which  he  secures  in  exchange  for  a  few 
hours  of  daily  toil.  TsTevertheless,  the  twelve- 
hour  day  still  persists. 

Did  I  say  twelve  hours?  In  some  of  the 
steel  mills,  where  men  work  twelve  hours  a 
day  for  two  weeks  and  then  twelve  hours  at 
[105] 


SOCIAL   RELIGION 

night  for  two  weeks  more,  each  time  that  they 
change  from  the  day  to  night  shift  they  work 
twenty- four  consecutive  hours — a  whole  day 
without  rest.  One  promising  young  man  w^ho 
was  engaged  on  this  long  shift  did  his  first 
"turn"  of  twelve  hours,  ate  his  supper,  and 
then  started  back  to  the  mill  for  the  next 
"turn."  He  had  alreadj^  done  a  long  day's 
^vork,  yet  twelve  hours  more  must  pass  be- 
fore he  would  have  an  opportunity  to  sleep. 
He  was  ambitious,  young,  energetic.  As  an 
electrician's  helper,  earning  fifteen  dollars  a 
Aveek,  he  was  succeeding,  with  the  promise  of 
rapid  advancement.  At  half  past  seven  he 
Avas  in  the  mill  and  at  eight  he  had  climbed  on 
an  electric  crane  to  make  some  repairs.  When 
the  repair  M^as  finished,  he  started  along  the 
narrow  walk  to  a  place  where  he  could  de- 
scend. Perhaps  it  was  because  the  air  was 
full  of  steam,  perhaps  he  became  a  little 
dizzy.  At  all  events,  he  reached  out  his  hand, 
touched  an  electric  wire  from  which  the  in- 
sulation had  been  removed,  got  a  slight  shock 
and  fell  thirty-five  feet  to  the  floor  of  the 
mill.  If  this  promising  j^oung  industrial 
worker  had  spent  six  instead  of  twelve 
[106] 


THE  LONG  DAY 

hours  in  performing  his  duties  as  an  electri- 
cian, he  might  not  have  lost  his  hfe  so  un- 
necessarily. 

Have  you  ever  stood  at  night  in  front  of 
some  small  station  along  a  main  line  of  rail- 
way, watching  the  night-expresses  rush  by? 
Perhaps  there  was  a  little  rain  falling — just 
enough  to  dim  the  vision,  and  make  the  beck- 
oning red  and  green  lights  indistinct  and 
blurred  in  the  darkness.  As  the  great  mass 
of  steel  and  wood  thundered  past,  did  it  ever 
occur  to  you  what  a  responsibility  rested  on 
that  engineer's  shoulders  as  he  grasped  the 
throttle,  peering  ahead  into  the  night?  Fifty 
miles  an  hour  on  a  dark  night !  A  slip  of  rock, 
a  loose  rail,  an  open  switch,  a  careless  dis- 
patcher, may  send  him  and  his  whole  train 
careening  over  an  embankment  or  crashing 
into  another  train. 

Surely,  though,  such  men  are  not  over- 
worked !  Their  positions  involve  far  too  much 
responsibilit5^ 

You  are  wrong  there,  for,  while  the  en- 
gineers of  the  fast  expresses  have  short  hours, 
the  engineers  and  brakemen  on  freights  and 
the  signal  tower  men  work  for  periods  which 
[  107] 


SOCIAL   RELIGION 

exceed  in  length  those  of  any  similar  group 
of  workers. 

The  Interstate  Commerce  Commission  re- 
cently issued  a  bulletin  showing  the  relation 
between  overwork  and  railroad  wrecks.  Ex- 
ample after  example  is  cited  in  which  a  brake- 
man,  who  had  worked  fifteen,  twenty,  thirty, 
or  even  thirty-six  hours,  with  practically  no 
opportunity  for  rest,  was  sent  back  at  night 
to  flag  an  oncoming  train,  fell  asleep  on  the 
track,  and  was  cut  to  pieces  by  the  engine, 
which,  in  another  moment,  crashed  into  the 
train  from  which  the  sleep-sick  brakeman  had 
been  sent. 

In  the  same  bulletin  examples  are  given  of 
signal  tower  operators  who  transmitted  an 
order  incorrectly  after  having  stood  for  twelve, 
fourteen,  or  sixteen  hours  at  their  posts.  Is  it 
barbarous  or  ludicrous  to  expect  men  who  have 
for  days  been  denied  normal  sleep  to  retain  the 
keenness  and  precision  necessary  for  railroad 
operation? 

One  of  the  most  disastrous  of  recent  pas- 
senger wrecks  was  caused  by  disobedience  to 
signals.  The  signals  were  plainly  set  for  the 
train  to  stop,  yet  the  engineer,  disregarding 
[108] 


THE  LONG  DAY 

them,  continued  at  forty  miles  an  hour  and 
ran  his  train  into  a  freight  which  stood  on  the 
track  ahead  of  him.  An  investigation  was 
made,  which  showed  that  the  engineer  had 
been  asleep  at  his  post  when  he  ran  past  the 
last  signal  tower,  and  had,  therefore,  not  seen 
the  signals.  Further  inquiry  showed  that  at 
the  last  station  the  engineer,  who  had  been  on 
duty  for  sixteen  hours,  had  begged  his  super- 
ior to  relieve  him — stating  that  he  could  not 
keep  awake.  The  superior  had  told  the  en- 
gineer to  go  about  his  business,  and  the  disaster 
followed. 

Has  the  recently  enacted  Federal  Law,  lim- 
iting the  length  of  the  working  day  of  rail- 
road employes,  had  any  effect  upon  these 
conditions?  I  cannot  tell  you,  but  I  do  know 
that  railroad  employes  are  still  overworked 
to  the  destruction  of  their  own  vitality  and 
the  endangering  of  the  traveling  public. 

Do  you  know  how  long  the  working  people 
of  the  United  States  actually  work?  I  mean 
the  people  who  dig  the  coal  which  you  burn, 
who  make  the  shoes,  hats,  shirts  and  gloves 
which  you  wear,  who  carry  you  from  city  to 
city,  or  from  street  to  street.  The  utmost 
[109] 


SOCIAL   RELIGION 

which  these  men  and  women  demand  is  eight 
hours : 

Eight  hours  for  work. 

Eight  hours  for  play. 
Eight  hours  for  sleep. 

Make  up  the  full  day. 

Yet  the  average  work  day  for  textile  mills  is 
ten  and  a  half,  and  for  shoe  factories  ten 
hours,  but  for  steel  mills,  Mr.  John  A.  Fitch 
after  a  careful  investigation  of  the  Pittsburg 
steel  district  reports:  "The  eight-hour  day- 
does  not  flourish.  I  could  find  only  about  one 
hundred  and  twenty  eight-hour  men  in  1907, 
among  the  seventeen  thousand  employes  in 
the  three  largest  plants  of  the  Carnegie  Steel 
Mills  in  Allegheny  County — three-quarters  of 
one  per  cent." 

The  report  on  the  Wages  and  Hours  in  the 
Iron  and  Steel  Industry  in  the  United  States 
thus  summarizes  the  length  of  the  working  day 
in  that  industry:^ 

"During  May,  1910,  the  period  covered  by 
this  investigation,  50,000  or  29  per  cent,  of 

*  Report  on  Conditions  of  Employment  in   Iron  and   Steel 
Industry,  62d  Congress,  2d  session,  Senate  Doc.  301,  pp.  8-10. 

[110] 


THE  LONG  DAY 

the  173,000  employes  of  blast  furnaces  and 
steel  works  and  rolling  mills  covered  by  this 
report  customarily  worked  7  days  per  week, 
and  20  per  cent,  of  them  worked  84  hours  or 
more  per  week,  which,  in  effect,  means  a  12- 
hour  working  day  every  day  in  the  week,  in-  ** 
eluding  Sunday.  The  evil  of  7-day  work 
was  particularly  accentuated  by  the  fact,  de- 
veloped in  the  investigation,  that  the  7-day 
working  week  was  not  confined  to  the  blast- 
furnace department,  where  there  is  a  metal- 
lurgical necessity  for  continuous  operation, 
and  in  which  department  88  per  cent,  of  the 
employes  worked  7  days  a  week;  but  it  was 
also  found  that,  to  a  considerable  extent,  in 
other  departments  where  no  such  metallurg- 
ical necessity  can  be  claimed,  productive  work 
was  carried  on  on  Sunday  just  as  on  other 
days  of  the  week.  For  example,  in  some  es- 
tablishments the  Bessemer  converters,  the  * 
open-hearth  furnaces,  and  blooming,  rail,  and 
structural  mills  were  found  operating  7  days 
a  week  for  commercial  reasons  only. 

"The  hardship  of  a  12-hour  day  and  a  7- 
day  week  is  still  further  increased  by  the  fact 
that  every  week  or  two  weeks,  as  the  case  may 
[111] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

be,  when  the  employes  on  the  day  shift  are 
transferred  to  the  night  shift,  and  vice 
versa,  employes  remain  on  duty  without  re- 
lief either  18  or  24  consecutive  hours,  accord- 
ing to  the  practice  adopted  for  the  change  of 
shift.  .  .  . 

"That  much  of  the  Sunday  labor  which  has 
been  prevalent  in  the  steel  industry  is  no  more 
necessary  than  in  other  industries  is  shown 
conclusively  by  the  fact  that,  at  the  time  of  the 
investigation  made  in  1910  by  this  Bureau  into 
the  conditions  of  labor  in  the  Bethlehem  Steel 
Works,  the  president  of  the  Steel  Corporation 
directed  the  rigid  enforcement  of  a  resolution 
adopted  three  years  previous,  cutting  out  a 
large  part  of  Sunday  work  except  in  the  blast- 
furnace department.  Even  in  the  blast-fur- 
nace department,  where  there  is  a  metallurg- 
ical necessity  for  continuous  operation  day 
and  night  throughout  7  days  of  the  week, 
there  is  practically  nothing  except  the  desire 
to  economize  in  the  expense  of  production 
that  has  prevented  the  introduction  of  a  sys- 
tem that  would  give  each  employe  1  day  of 
rest  out  of  the  7.  .  •  .  It  should  not  be  over- 
looked that  it  is  not  simply  the  character  or 
[  112  ] 


THE  LONG  DAY 

the  continuity  of  the  work,  but  the  fact  that 
in  the  case  of  the  12-hour-a-day  man  one-half 
of  each  24  hours — more  than  three-fourths  of 
his  waking  hours — is  spent  on  duty  in  the  mills, 
which  is  of  significance  to  the  worker  and  his 
family.  Nothing  has  been  done  by  the  manu- 
facturers nor  have  any  proposals  been  made 
to  lessen  the  proportion  of  men  working  72 
hours  or  more  per  week.  This  proportion  re- 
mains unchanged,  being  unaffected  by  the 
plan  to  give  the  men  who  were  working  84 
hours  per  week  one  day  of  rest  in  seven. 

"An  added  significance  attaches  to  the  con- 
ditions of  labor  here  described  as  characteristic 
of  the  iron  and  steel  industry  when  we  con- 
sider that  the  general  tendency  in  other  in- 
dustries for  years  past  has  been  toward  a 
shorter  w^orking-day.  Years  ago  the  10-hour 
day  became  almost  a  standard;  since  that  time 
further  reductions  have  brought  the  working- 
day  to  9,  and,  in  many  cases,  to  8  hours,  and 
this  reduction  has  been  accompanied  by  a  part 
holiday  on  Saturday.  It  is,  therefore,  in  strik- 
ing contrast  to  this  general  tendency  in  other 
industries  to  find  in  a  great  basic  industry, 
such  as  that  part  of  the  iron  and  steel  industry 
[113] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

covered  in  this  report,  that  approximately 
only  14  per  cent,  of  the  173,000  employes 
work  less  than  60  hours  per  week  and  almost 
43  per  cent,  work  72  hours  or  over  per  week." 

Do  you  realize  the  meaning  of  a  "twelve- 
hour  day"?  If  a  man  must  spend  an  hour 
going  to  and  from  work  (this  is  below,  rather 
than  above  the  average) ;  if  he  requires  an 
hour  to  eat  breakfast  and  dinner ;  if  he  spends 
half  an  hour  washing,  dressing  and  undress- 
ing; if  he  secures  eight  hours  of  sleep,  he  has 
left  in  each  day  ninety  minutes  to  visit  his 
family,  read,  play,  enjoy,  live.  The  twelve- 
hour  day  means  that  the  man  who  leaves  home 
at  half  past  five  in  the  morning,  and  starts 
to  work  at  six,  quits  work  at  six  in  the  eve- 
ning, and  reaches  home  at  six-thirty.  In 
the  steel  industry,  at  the  time  of  this  investi- 
gation, there  were  ninety  thousand  men  doing 
this  six  days  a  week,  and  thirty-five  thousand 
others  doing  it  seven  days  a  week. 

Such  conditions  persist  in  the  face  of  ex- 
pert testimony  that  men  work  better  during 
an  eight-hour  than  during  a  twelve-hour  day. 
In  some  industries,  such  as  steel  making  and 
railroad  work,  long  hours  are  maintained  con- 
[114] 


THE   LONG  DAY 

tinuously  throughout  the  year.  On  the  other 
hand,  many  industries  have  "rush  seasons," 
during  which  the  factories  work  for  abnor- 
mally long  hours,  and  then  do  little  or  no  work 
in  the  "slack  season."  The  paper  box  indus- 
try, the  candy  industry  at  Christmas  and 
Easter,  and  the  clothing  industry  before  the 
spring  and  fall  seasons  are  typical  of  "rush" 
season  trades.  The  hours  in  the  steel  industry 
are  habitually  long.  The  hours  in  the  candy, 
box  and  clothing  industries  are  long  only  dur- 
ing "rush"  times,  when  overtime  work  is  usu- 
ally done.  Whether  the  long  hours  be  contin- 
uous or  intermittent,  their  result  is  the  same. 
Both  involve  overwork. 

Was  industry  made  for  man,  or  man  for 
industry?  Is  it  necessary  that  these  steel-pud- 
dlers  or  those  railroad  brakemen  work  twelve 
or  twenty-four  hours  in  a  single  day?  The 
stability  of  society  does  not  depend  upon 
their  sacrifice,  because  there  is  already  enough 
and  to  spare. 

The   strain  of  industrial  effort  upon  the 

worker  depends  first  upon  the  length  of  the 

day's  work,  and,  second,  upon  its  intensity. 

Not  only  are  hours  in  American  industry  long, 

[iir>] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

but  they  continue  long  in  the  face  of  a  rapid 
increase  in  the  industrial  strain.  Men  who 
work  the  machines  find  them  geared  in  such 
a  way  that  they  maintain  a  certain  speed. 
When  the  machine  is  started,  the  operator 
must  keep  the  pace  or  lose  his  position.  One 
man  in  a  group  is  paid  an  extra  wage  to  set 
a  pace,  which  all  of  the  other  workers  in  the 
same  group  must  maintain  if  they  are  to  hold 
their  positions.  Where  workers  are  paid  by 
the  piece,  the  piece  rate  is  set  so  low  that  the 
worker  must  create  a  very  large  output  in 
order  to  earn  a  living  wage.  These  and  a 
score  of  other  devices  are  used  to  speed  men 
to  their  uttermost. 

Within  the  last  decade  hours  have  slightly 
decreased  in  the  industrial  world,  but  with  this 
decrease  in  hours  has  gone  an  increase  in  speed. 
The  girls  in  the  recent  shirt  waist  makers' 
strike  in  New  York  complained  that  instead 
of  watching  one  needle  running  as  needles 
did  ten  years  ago,  at  the  rate  of  2,200  strokes 
a  minute,  they  were  now  compelled  to  watch 
from  two  to  twenty  needles  on  the  same  ma- 
chine, some  running  as  high  as  4,400  strokes 
a  minute.  The  needles  break,  the  thread 
[116] 


THE  LONG  DAY 

catches,  the  material  draws — a  dozen  things 
happen,  and,  as  the  work  is  piece  work,  every 
minute  counts.  While  the  total  number  of 
hours  may  be  less,  the  total  vitality  expended 
on  the  work  is  necessarily  much  greater  be- 
cause of  the  increased  concentration  and  speed 
required. 

Fatigue  is  the  j^roduct  of  the  number  of 
hours  of  work  multiplied  by  the  intensity  of 
the  work  during  each  hour.  The  number 
of  hours  has  decreased,  somewhat,  but  the  de- 
crease in  hours  has  been  more  than  offset  by 
the  great  increase  in  the  intensity  of  factory 
work.  In  the  steel  mills  of  Pittsburg,  "sup- 
erintendent is  pitted  against  superintendent, 
foreman  against  foreman,  mill  against  mill. 
When  a  record  is  broken,  it  means  simply  that 
the  goal  to  be  struggled  for  has  been  set  ahead. 
In  the  mills  of  the  Carnegie  Steel  Company 
two  months  in  each  year,  usually  IMarch  and 
October,  are  known  as  'record  months,'  and 
are  sacred  to  the  breaking  of  records.  The 
mills  are  pushed  to  the  limit ;  every  possible  ad- 
vantage is  given  in  the  way  of  perfect  equip- 
ment, and  all  known  obstacles  arc  removed  be- 
forehand. Some  departments  are  run  straiglit 
[117] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

through  the  month  without  an  hour's  stop,  and 
all  are  run  overtime.  If  records  are  broken, 
the  superintendent  passes  the  cigars.  The  new 
record  has  an  effect,  for  what  is  done  in  March 
and  October  is  of  course  possible  in  April  and 
November."  ^ 

Do  not  suppose  that  it  is  in  Pittsburg  alone 
that  men  and  women  overwork.  Pittsburg  is 
cited  as  an  example  because  it  is  in  Pittsburg 
that  the  best  investigation  of  conditions  has 
been  made.  But  equally  striking  examples  of 
overwork  can  be  found  in  every  great  in- 
dustrial state  of  the  Union.  Similar  condi- 
tions exist  for  example  in  the  textile  mills  of 
New  England.  Years  ago,  a  woman  tended 
two  slowly  running  looms.  Later,  as  the  hours 
of  work  grew  less,  the  number  of  looms  was 
increased  to  four  and  six,  and  now,  with  the 
Drapers,  an  operative  is  expected  to  look  after 
from  twelve  to  sixteen  looms. 

Each  new  labor-saving  device;  each  inven- 
tion which  increases  the  speed  at  which  ma- 
chines work,  or  the  number  of  machines  that 

*The  Steel  Industry  and  the  Labor  Problem,  J.  A.  Fitch, 
Charities  and  the  Commons,  March  6,  1910,  vol.  21,  pp.  1083- 
1084. 

[118] 


THE  LONG  DAY 

a  man  must  tend,  makes  overwork  more  prob- 
able. 

Overwork  is  a  menace  to  industrial,  social 
and  personal  welfare,  because  it  results  in  one 
of  the  most  serious  and  far-reaching  human 
maladies — fatigue.  Fatigue,  long  continued, 
leads  inevitably  to  exhaustion ;  exhaustion  leads 
to  disease,  and  then,  ultimately  to  a  deatli 
which  is  due  to  continual,  wearing,  intense 
work.  Overwork,  with  its  attendant  evils, 
thus  becomes  a  problem  of  serious  magnitude. 

Fatigue  is  the  result  of  poison.  Men  and 
women  are  tired,  not  primarily  because  their 
muscle  and  nerve  tissues  are  worn  out,  but  be- 
cause the  tissues  are  full  of  chemical  com- 
pounds which  make  activity  difficult  or  impos- 
sible. The  girl  working  on  a  2,200-stroke-a- 
minute  sewing  machine  is  constantly  creating, 
in  her  nen^e  and  muscle  tissues,  chemical  com- 
pounds wliich,  when  present  in  sufficient  quan- 
tities, produce  that  languor  which  makes  good 
work  and  joyous  living  alike  impossible. 

The  poisons  created  by  exertion  are  elim- 
inated from  the  body  during  rest,  or  are  neu- 
tralized by  antitoxin,  whicli  the  body  generates 
for  the  purpose.  Under  normal  conditions, 
[119] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

the  period  of  rest  following  a  period  of  exer- 
tion will  be  long  enough  to  permit  of  the  re- 
moval or  neutralization  of  the  poisons  due  to 
exertion.  If  such  a  period  is  allowed,  the 
fatigue  of  each  day — a  healthy  kind  of  "tired 
feeling" — will  disappear  during  the  night  and 
the  succeeding  day  will  witness  an  amount  of 
bodily  vigor  equal  to  that  of  the  preceding 
day,  if  not  slightly  superior  to  it.  This  rep- 
resents the  normal  life.  If,  however,  the  work 
day  be  unduly  prolonged,  Sunday  be  elim- 
inated, and  no  opportunity  be  given  nature  to 
remove  or  neutralize  the  fatigue  poisons,  seri- 
ous debility  results — anemia,  lassitude,  indif- 
ference, and  later  nervous  disorders  and  gen- 
eral nervous  breakdown. 

The  waste  of  fatigue  is  far  in  excess  of  the 
waste  from  iUness,  since  fatigue  is  directlj^ 
responsible  for  the  lower  efficiency  of  at  least 
one-half  of  the  population.  Prof.  Irving 
Fisher  in  his  "National  Vitality"  counts  fa- 
tigue as  the  leading  factor  involved  in  decreas- 
ing vitality  and  efficiency.  Both  in  the  schools 
and  in  the  factories,  the  American  people  are 
creating  more  fatigue  poison  than  the  sj^stem 
can  neutralize  or  remove  in  the  hours  of  rest. 
[120] 


THE  LONG  DAY 

Born  into  our  industrial  societj^  gripped  by 
the  stern  necessity  which  compels  him  to  earn 
his  bread,  the  worker  enters  American  indus- 
tiy,  and,  caught  in  its  levers  and  cogs,  labors 
on,  producing  what  he  must,  to  earn  what  he 
may.  There  is  no  necessary  relation  between 
the  amount  of  effort  which  he  expends  and 
the  return  which  he  receives.  Society  does  not 
need  the  extra  goods  which  his  weary  fingers 
shape.  There  is  one  primary  factor  upon 
which  society  must  depend  for  its  main- 
tenance— that  is  upon  joyous,  enthusiastic 
men  and  women.  There  is  neither  joy  nor  en- 
thusiasm in  the  victim  of  the  long  day. 

Was  industry  made  for  man  or  man  for  in- 
dustry? It  is  not  necessary  that  these  steel 
puddlers  and  railroad  brakemen  work  twelve 
hours  in  the  twenty-four.  Social  stability  does 
not  depend  upon  the  sacrifice  of  their  vitality. 
Enough  goods  are  already  produced.  We  are 
sufficientl}^  prosperous.  Then  let  them  stop! 
Let  them  stop,  as  they  have  in  Australasia,  at 
the  end  of  eight  hours. 

If  the  average  worker  in  modern  industry 
was  engaged  in  an  occupation  of  tense  inter- 
est and  broad  value,  eight  hours  might  be  too 
[1211 


SOCIAL   RELIGIONi 

few,  but  the  average  job  is  a  dead  job — mon- 
otonous, same,  to  the  point  of  madness.  Could 
you  make  the  same  motion  four  thousand  times 
a  day,  and  keep  it  up  day  after  day,  year  after 
year,  without  growing  weary? 

Eight  hours  is  enough,  unless  it  can  be  made 
to  appear  that  the  product  of  additional  hours 
is  necessary  to  the  continuance  of  the  human 
race  or  that  men  were  created  only  to  engage 
in  industry. 

Men  were  made  to  live;  overwork  destroys 
life;  hence  overwork  subverts  the  real  purpose 
of  life.  Jesus  said,  "I  am  come  that  you  might 
have  life  and  that  you  might  have  it  more 
abundantly."  What,  think  you,  would  be  his 
comment  on  the  twelve-hour  day? 

Was  industry  made  for  man,  or  man  for  in- 
dustry? There  is  one  possible  answer  to  that 
question.  "Every  social  institution  was  made 
for  man,  hence  when  an  institution  ceases  to 
serve  man,  and  instead  demands  service  of 
him,  that  institution  must  either  be  reformed 
or  abolished."  Men  and  women  need  not 
work  twelve  hours  a  day  in  order  to  secure  a 
livelihood  for  themselves  and  for  their  fam- 
ilies. Since  this  fact  has  been  established  be- 
[122] 


THE  LONG  DAY 

yond  question,  the  Long  Day  has  been 
weighed  in  the  balance,  found  wanting,  and 
condemned  to  abohtion.  Yours,  Good  Samar- 
itans, is  the  task  of  enforcing  this  just  sen- 
tence. 


I  123  ] 


CHAPTER   VIII 

THE    CURSE    OF    ENFORCED 
IDLENESS 

Of  all  the  disasters  that  fall  upon  the  work- 
ingman's  home,  the  most  fatal  is  unemploy- 
ment— enforced  idleness.  You  know  the 
tramp — you  cartoon  him,  joke  about  him.  He 
makes  an  excellent  butt  for  your  ridicule  be- 
cause he  is  seeking  for  a  chance  to  shovel  snow 
in  July,  and  to  pick  apples  in  January.  You 
laugh  at  the  tramp — the  professional  loafer, 
who  idles  because  he  does  not  want  to  work; 
but  are  you  acquainted  with  the  man  who, 
lacking  opportunity,  would  work  if  he  could? 
The  man  who  walks  the  streets  from  early  until 
late,  seeking  a  chance  to  be  employed?  Who 
sees  his  family  hungry,  threatened  by  an  ex- 
acting landlord,  overwhelmed  with  debt,  and 
hurrying  deeper  and  deeper  into  the  depths 
of  misery?  That  man  is  one  of  the  unem- 
ployed. 

[124] 


CURSE    OF   ENFORCED  IDLENESS 

Unemployed?  Then  it  is  not  true  that  there 
is  work  for  all  ?  We  have  been  told  for  years 
that  if  the  disemployed  mechanic  would  go 
West,  he  might  earn  four  dollars  a  day  and  his 
keep  during  harvest  season.  Overjoyed  at 
the  prospect,  he  eagerly  seizes  the  opportunity, 
pawTis  his  furniture,  exhausts  his  borrowing 
power,  takes  any  means  which  will  enable  him 
to  get  thirty  or  forty  dollars,  or  else,  lacking 
such  means,  he  joins  the  tramps,  and  rides  on 
brake-beams,  looking  eagerly  for  the  chance 
to  work. 

Let  me  tell  you  the  story  of  a  man  who  went 
to  the  Western  harvest  fields.  He  was  not 
poverty  stricken,  but  an  industrious  mechanic, 
disemployed  by  a  temporary  closing  of  the 
shop  in  which  he  worked.  It  was  summer, 
work  in  his  line  was  scarce,  he  had  heard  the 
stories  of  fabulous  opportunity  in  Western 
fields,  so  taking  from  his  savings  fifty  dollars, 
he  bade  his  family  farewell,  bought  a  ticket 
and  started  in  a  day  coach  on  a  three-day 
journey.  Once  in  the  grain  belt,  he  began 
looking  for  work.  Almost  immediately,  he  was 
rewarded.  A  farmer,  who  was  harvesting, 
offered  him  a  position  on  the  thresher,  at  two 
[  125  1 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

dollars  a  day.    Two  dollars  ?    He  had  expected 
at  least  four. 

"Nothing  to  it,  young  fellow,"  answered 
the  farmer.  "You're  a  green  hand — I  can't 
rely  on  you.  Besides,  I  have  lots  of  men  offer- 
ing.   I  turned  a  dozen  away  last  week." 

So  the  mechanic  swallowed  his  pride  and  be- 
gan at  two  dollars  a  day.  He  meant  to  do  his 
best,  but  his  experience  had  been  wholly  in- 
doors. On  the  thresher,  surrounded  by  dust, 
under  a  merciless  sun,  he  dropped  the  second 
day,  and  was  carried  into  the  barn.  The  next 
morning  the  farmer  came  to  him. 

"You  see,"  he  complained,  "you  greenies 
aren't  worth  your  salt.  You  aren't  used  to 
the  heat  and  you  can't  stand  it."  Then,  more 
kindly,  "stay  close  to-day,  you'll  be  all  right 
by  day  after  to-morrow."  So  the  first  week 
ended  with  eight  dollars  and  a  small  bill  for 
drugs. 

But  the  mechanic  persevered,  and  at  the 
end  of  the  third  week  the  good-natured  farmer 
raised  his  wages  to  two  dollars  and  a  half. 
During  the  fifth  week  the  hands  were  clean- 
ing up  the  corners,  and  on  Friday  night 
threshing  was  over. 

[126] 


CURSE    OF   ENFORCED  IDLENESS 

Light  of  heart,  optimistic,  and  eager  for  an- 
other place,  fifty  odd  dollars  added  to  his 
store,  the  young  man  took  the  road  Sunday 
morning.  Everywhere  he  met  with  the  same 
story.  Harvesting  was  at  an  end.  If  he 
cared  to  go  up  into  Oregon  or  down  into  Cali- 
fornia, they  were  sure  he  could  get  good 
wages  at  fruit  picking.  The  car  fare?  Yes, 
it  would  cost  him  thirty  dollars  or  so  to  get 
there. 

So  he  journeyed,  picking  up  a  day's  work 
here  and  there,  for  four  weeks.  He  had  rid- 
den a  little  in  trains,  but  that  ate  money  so 
rapidly!  He  had  lived  from  hand  to  mouth, 
and  was  not  feeling  in  good  trim.  Four  weeks 
had  gone,  and  when  he  counted  his  store,  he 
found  but  thirty-five  of  the  fifty  dollars  with 
which  he  had  quit  his  first  job.  He  reflected. 
A  letter  from  home  decided  him.  The  shop 
had  resumed  and  the  foreman  had  asked  for 
him.  Going  to  the  nearest  station,  he  pur- 
chased a  ticket  home  for  twenty-eight  dollars 
exactly. 

"Well,  I'm  back,"  he  told  his  wife.  "I 
started  witli  fifty  dollars,  I've  worked  and 
walked  for  ten  weeks,  and  I've  got  just  thirty 
[1271 


SOCIAL   RELIGION 

dollars  in  my  jeans.  That  ten  weeks  cost  me 
twenty  dollars,  besides  the  keep  of  you  and 
the  kids.  I  might  have  been  like  other  folks 
and  taken  my  vacation  at  the  shore." 

I  tell  this  story  in  detail,  because  it  is  not 
exceptional,  and  because  it  shows  how  next 
to  impossible  it  is  for  a  man  who  loses  his 
regular  work  to  turn  easily  to  something  else 
and  make  a  living.  Brought  up  to  one  trade, 
the  modern  worker  is  dependent  on  that  trade. 
If  his  trade  fails  him,  he  is  in  a  sorry  plight. 

Suppose  that,  instead  of  going  West,  this 
man  had  stayed  in  his  own  city,  or  gone  from 
city  to  city,  seeking  work.  He  might  have 
met  with  no  better  success. 

"There's  lots  of  work,  if  a  man  really  wants 
to  do  it,"  cries  the  successful  business  man. 
"These  fellows  don't  really  care  whether  they 
work  or  not." 

That  trite  statement  is  even  more  inaccurate 
than  the  generally  accepted  belief  in  "plenty 
of  chance  on  the  Western  farm." 

In  1907  I  knew  an  earnest  hard  working 

young  fellow  of  thirty-five,  who  was  earning 

$3.50  a  day,  as  a  skilled  mechanic.     No,  he 

never  drank.    When  the  hard  times  came,  this 

[128] 


CURSE    OF   ENFORCED  IDLENESS 

man  was  thrown  out  of  employment,  by  the 
closing  of  the  factory  in  which  he  worked. 
For  three  months  he  tramped  the  streets,  look- 
ing for  a  job — any  kind  of  a  job — to  assist 
in  keeping  his  family  above  the  poverty  line, 
and  during  these  months  he  was  denied  an  op- 
portunity to  earn  a  livelihood.  He  was  not 
alone.  A  want  "ad."  calling  for  five  men  was 
answered  by  five  hundred  strong-bodied 
workers,  who  had  lost  their  onl}'-  means  of 
support — employment  for  wages. 

After  an  exhaustive,  scholarly  analysis  of 
the  causes  of  misery  in  workingmen's  homes, 
Dr.  Devine  concludes  that  unemplo5''ment  is 
the  greatest  single  cause.  In  seventy  per  cent, 
of  the  5,000  families  which  he  had  under  con- 
sideration one  or  more  of  the  members  were 
unemployed  when  the  families  applied  to  the 
Charity  Society  for  relief.  Unemployment 
is  the  great  fear  of  the  wage  worker. 

The  unemployed  man  is  not  at  fault  be- 
cause he  cannot  find  work.  From  boyhood 
he  may  have  been  underfed  and  thus  rendered 
incapable  of  working  efficiently;  he  may  have 
fallen  sick  of  typhoid,  the  product  of  a  poison- 
ous milk  or  water  supply;  he  may  be  thrown 
[129] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

out  of  work  by  a  strike,  or  through  the  clos- 
ing of  the  factory  or  mine  due  to  lack  of 
orders.  Some  or  all  of  these  causes  may  com- 
bine, and  usually  do  combine,  to  create  un- 
employment. They  are  causes  which  can  be 
neither  foreseen  nor  prevented  by  the  indi- 
vidual worker. 

The  wage-earner  is  at  the  mercy  of  modern 
industry,  and,  since  even  the  most  strong- 
minded  captains  of  industry  have  not  suc- 
ceeded in  piloting  their  industrial  craft  past 
the  disaster  of  bankruptcy,  the  helpless  worker 
suffers. 

Individual  business  failure  is  no  longer  as 
frequent  as  it  once  was,  though  the  bank- 
ruptcy of  a  business  may  still  temporarily  dis- 
employ  considerable  numbers  of  men.  The 
real  danger  of  unemployment  lies  in  the  indus- 
trial depressions  which  have  swept  over  the 
western  world  with  terrible  regularity  during 
the  last  century.  Once  in  ten  years  these  pan- 
ics visit  the  land,  and  for  one,  two,  or 
even  three  years  industry  is  prostrated — fac- 
tories close,  mines  shut  down — and  millions  of 
men  and  women  are  thrown  out  of  employ- 
ment. These  great  national  disasters,  so  much 
[130] 


CURSE    OF   ENFORCED  IDLENESS 

more  terrible  than  individual  failures,  empha- 
size unemployment  to  an  unbelievable  extent. 

Suppose  that  your  father,  and  wife,  and 
uncles,  and  sisters,  regularly,  every  decade, 
were  prostrated  by  a  terrible  illness,  lasting 
for  months  or  years.  Would  you  not  take 
every  measure  to  discover  the  cause  of  the  sick- 
ness, and  prevent  its  recurrence?  When  the 
nation  is  confronted  with  a  like  situation,  can 
we  do  differently? 

Just  how  extensive  unemployment  in  Amer- 
ica actually  is  we  have  no  mea^::  of  knowing. 
Certain  things  concerning  it,  however,  we  can 
state  with  certainty.  For  example,  a  study 
of  the  statistics  shows  that  unemployment  is 
always  a  factor  in  modern  industry.  In  New 
York  and  Massachusetts  and  New  Jersey, 
where  careful  figures  have  been  kept  for  years, 
there  is  a  continuous  unemployment  record. 
Whether  from  personal  or  industrial  causes, 
the  average  worker  must  expect  a  certain  pro- 
portion of  unemployment  every  year.  In  the 
mines  the  unemployment  will  equal  about  one- 
third  of  the  entire  working  time.  In  other  in- 
dustries the  average  unemployment  in  a  year 
will  amount  to  perhaps  one-fifth  of  the  work- 
1  VU  1 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

ing  time.  But  these  figures  are  averages. 
During  some  years,  when  great  strikes  or  trade 
depressions  prevail,  unemployment  increases 
to  such  an  extent  that  a  man  may  lose  one- 
half  of  the  working  time.  During  the  anthra- 
cite strike  of  1902  the  mines  worked  only  116 
days,  a  little  over  one-third  of  the  number  of 
normal  working  days  in  the  year.  Before 
these  causes  the  worker  is  powerless.  He  maj", 
as  one  individual,  do  his  part  to  prevent  strikes, 
but  he  plays  no  part  at  all  in  directing  these 
forces  which  take  his  bread  from  his  mouth. 
One  of  the  phases  of  unemployment  which 
has  presented  the  greatest  difficulty  to  stu- 
dents and  administrators  is  that  involved  in 
casual  labor.  For  example,  the  dock  men,  who 
load  and  unload  vessels,  work  one  day  this 
week,  five  days  next  week,  and,  then  meeting 
a  period  of  great  prosperity,  they  wall  work 
day  and  night  for  several  days.  Following 
this  overwork  will  come  a  week  with  nothing 
to  do.  Dock-labor  presents  this  aspect  the 
world  over.  It  is,  perhaps,  the  greatest  single 
class  of  casual  labor,  which  has  been  called 
by  Dr.  Devine  the  "greatest  of  all  maladjust- 
ments." Either  because  they  are  inefficient  or 
[132] 


CURSE    OF   ENFORCED  IDLENESS 

because  the  nature  of  their  work  renders  them 
uncertain  and  indifferent,  these  casual  laborers, 
described  by  Dr.  Patten  as  the  "peripatetics  of 
industry,"  wander  from  one  employment  to 
another,  are  discharged  at  the  first  decrease 
in  work,  and  leave  one  place  as  soon  as  another 
opening  offers. 

"All  of  that  sounds  very  well,"  you  ex- 
claim, "but  it  is  their  fault.  They  might  have 
learned  a  trade  while  they  were  young.  There 
is  no  lack  of  employment  among  skilled  men. 
They  might,  even  now,  study  at  night  to  pre- 
pare themselves  for  an  advance  in  position. 
They  might  save  at  least  a  part  of  their  earn- 
ings during  prosperous  times,  and  thus  defend 
themselves  against  periods  of  unemploy- 
ment." 

Perhaps,  but,  if  you  had  lived  their  lives, 
would  you  have  done  different^?  Perchance 
they  were  underfed  and  badly  housed.  Per- 
chance they  lacked  initiative,  and  their  parents, 
financially  unable  to  helji  them  forward,  sent 
them  to  work  at  the  beginning  of  the  adoles- 
cent period,  or  else  allo\ved  them  to  drift  from 
one  occupation  to  another. 

Then  there  is  another  pliase  of  this  problem. 
[133] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

Casual  labor  must  be  done,  and  if  one  man  did 
not  do  the  work,  another  would — and  at  the 
same  wages.  The  demand  for  casual  labor  is 
in  itself  a  maladjustment  of  serious  magni- 
tude. However,  granting  all  of  the  argu- 
ments: that  these  men  might  have  learned  a 
trade;  might  have  maintained  a  higher  stand- 
ard of  thought  and  intelligence,  thus  lifting 
their  families  over  the  poverty  line,  there  is 
still  one  factor  which  transcends  all  other  con- 
siderations: the  children  of  these  men  are  fol- 
lowing in  their  fathers'  footsteps,  perpetuating 
a  bad  system.  Even  supposing  that  the  fath- 
er's lack  of  earning  power  be  due  to  inebriety, 
the  children  still  have  a  right  to  demand  pro- 
tection and  opportunity. 

Whether  unemploj^ment  be  the  result  of 
sickness  and  accident,  of  industrial  depression, 
or  of  the  existence  of  casual  trades,  its  effects 
upon  the  unemploj^ed  and  his  family  are  the 
same.  Accustomed  to  regularity  of  living, 
the  man  who  is  unemployed  finds  himself 
without  any  definite  restraints  upon  his  ac- 
tivities. The  result  is  usually  some  form  of 
dissipation.  Often  in  his  attempt  to  secure 
work  he  uses  the  freight  trains  as  a  means  of 
[  134  ] 


CURSE    OF   ENFORCED  IDLENESS 

getting  from  place  to  place.  The  life  of  the 
"hobo"  proves  too  attractive,  and  the  man, 
freed  from  any  restraining  influence,  becomes 
a  confirmed  tramp.  Thus  the  influences  of 
unemployment  are  unsettling,  and  the  unem- 
ployed loses  one  of  the  most  desirable  charac- 
teristics of  an  efficient  worker — methodical 
regularity. 

At  the  end  of  a  period  of  unemployment  the 
average  man  is  far  less  efficient  and  less  capa- 
ble of  taking  his  place  in  industry  than  he  was 
at  the  beginning  of  the  period  of  unemploy- 
ment. Unemployment  and  inefficiency,  inef- 
ficiency and  unemi^loyment,  are  two  comple- 
mentary forces,  supplementing  and  emphasiz- 
ing each  other. 

After  fifteen  years'  study  of  charitable 
work — in  which  unemployment  plays  so  large 
a  part — Dr.  Devine  thus  sums  up  the  influence 
of  the  personal  element  in  unemployment: 
"From  the  point  of  view  of  the  charitable 
agencies,  the  importance  of  this  subject  is  in- 
dicated by  the  fact  that  in  two-thirds  of  the 
families  who  come  under  the  care  of  the  Char- 
ity Organization  Society  in  industrially  normal 
times,  one  or  more  wage-earners  are  unem- 
[  13.)  ] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

ployed  at  the  time  of  their  appHcation  for 
aid." 

Dr.  Devine  reaches  this  conclusion  after  a 
careful  analysis  of  the  various  factors  involved 
in  the  problem.  He  bases  his  conclusion,  pri- 
marily, on  a  study  of  5,000  families  which 
came  for  help  to  the  New  York  Charity  Or- 
ganization Society,  in  a  normally  prosperous 
year.  Intemperance,  laziness,  vice,  accident, 
sickness,  desertion — all  of  these  factors  played 
some  part  in  causing  destitution,  but  dominat- 
ing all  was  unemployment.  There  is  no  ques- 
tion but  that  personal  depravity  seems  in  the 
last  analysis  to  be  due  to  the  impossibility  of 
finding  any  means  by  which  an  honest  liveli- 
hood may  be  secured. 

The  effects  of  unemployment  extend  to  the 
family  of  the  unemployed.  The  irregular  life 
of  the  father  communicates  itself  to  the  chil- 
dren, and  the  lack  of  food  resulting  from  a 
lack  of  income  means  malnutrition  for  all. 
Thus  the  energy  already  expended  in  building 
up  the  family  to  a  standard  of  efficient  hving 
is  negatived  by  the  period  of  unemployment 
involving  malnutrition  and  family  degeneracy. 

You  and  I  are  members  of  a  society  in 
[  136] 


CURSE    OF   EXFORCED  IDLENESS 

which  men  are  denied  the  right  to  make  a  Hv- 
ing  for  their  famihes — a  denial  which  brings 
untold  hardship  and  misery.  Through  no 
fault  of  his  own — often,  indeed,  through  the 
operation  of  forces  which  are,  so  far  as  we 
now  know,  beyond  human  control — the  bread- 
winner is  told  that  he  may  win  no  more  bread. 
When  you  thought  that  I  was  exaggerating 
the  American  hell,  had  you  considered  the 
Curse  of  Enforced  Idleness? 


[137] 


CHAPTER  IX 
HUMAN    SACRIFICE 

The  other  day  I  was  riding  with  an  insur- 
ance man  past  a  structural  steel  bridge  in  proc- 
ess of  construction.  In  the  course  of  the  con- 
versation we  commented  upon  the  constant 
risks  run  by  structural  steel  workers.  "Yes," 
said  my  friend,  "poor  devils,  the  danger  is  so 
great  that  our  company  will  not  insure  them." 
Think  of  that!  An  American  industry  in 
which  the  accident  risk  is  so  high  that  an  insur- 
ance company  refuses  to  insure  the  workers. 
Yet,  with  all  its  hazards,  this  industry  is  car- 
ried on,  and  you  and  I  ride  over  the  bridges 
and  work  in  the  office  buildings  in  the  erection 
of  which  these  men  lose  their  lives. 

You  have  often  heard  it  said  that  life  in 
America  is  very  cheap.  It  is  told  of  Rudyard 
Kipling  that  on  one  of  his  journeys  to  the 
United  States  he  rode  in  an  engine  over  a 
Western  line.  At  one  place  they  passed  at 
great  speed  over  a  light  wooden  trestle  which 
[138] 


HUMAN    SACRIFICE 

swayed  under  the  v^eight  of  the  traui,  where- 
upon ]Mr.  Kipling  protested  to  the  engineer 
against  the  danger  of  such  construction.  The 
engineer,  described  by  Mr.  KiiDling  as  a  typi- 
cal American,  replied  with  a  sentiment  which 
sums  up  the  whole  of  American  accident  phi- 
losophy: "You  see,"  commented  the  engineer, 
"it's  this  way.  When  we  build  a  bridge,  we 
guess  it's  going  to  last  forever,  and  sometimes 
we  guess  ourselves  into  the  depot,  and  some- 
times we  guess  ourselves  into  hell."  We  are 
careless  of  life,  and  nowhere  is  our  carelessness 
more  strikingly  portrayed  than  in  our  treat- 
ment of  industrial  accidents. 

A  certain  risk  seems  to  be  inevitably  con- 
nected with  some  phases  of  modern  industry. 
Mr.  Kipling  has  very  strikingly  described  this 
in  his  "Sons  of  Martha": 

"They  finger  death  at  their  gloves'  ends, 

When  they  piece  and  repiece  the  living  wire. 
He  rears  against  the  gates  they  tend, 

They  feed  him,  hungry,  beside  their  fires. 
At  break  of  day,  ere  men  see  clear, 

They  stumble  into  his  terrible  stall. 
And  hale  him  forth  like  a  haltered  steer, 

And  goad  him  and  turn  him  till  evenfall." 
(  139  ] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

To  such  risks,  which  will  always  constitute 
an  essential  part  of  an  industry  using  giant 
mechanical  forces,  there  are  added  other  risks 
entirely  unnecessary,  as  a  consequence  of 
which  men  suffer  from  accidents  which  are 
wholly  preventable.  Such  accidents  are  con- 
stantly occurring  in  steel  mills,  machine  shops, 
and  other  places  where  nature  is  harnessed  to 
do  the  work  of  man.  A  typical  illustration  of 
such  accidents  is  furnished  by  the  death  of  a 
steel  worker,  who  was  burned  by  hot  slag  in 
a  Chicago  steel  mill. 

Ora  Allen  is  Inquest  No.  39,193  in  the  Cor- 
oner's Office  in  the  Criminal  Court  Building 
downtown.  On  the  twelfth  of  last  December 
he  was  a  ladleman  in  the  North  Open  Hearth 
Mill  of  the  Illinois  Steel  Company,  twelve 
miles  from  downtown,  in  South  Chicago.  On 
the  fifteenth  he  was  a  corpse  in  the  company's 
private  hospital.  On  the  seventeenth  his  re- 
mains were  viewed  by  six  good  and  lawful 
men  at  Griesel  &  Son's  undertaking  shop  at 
8496  Commercial  Avenue. 

The  first  witness,  Newton  Allen,  told  the 
gist  of  the  story : 

"On  the  twelfth  of  last  December  Newton 
[140] 


HUMAN   SACRIFICE 

Allen  was  operating  overhead  crane  No.  3  in 
the  North  Open  Hearth  Mill  of  the  Illinois 
Steel  Company.  Seated  aloft  in  the  cage  of 
his  crane,  he  dropped  his  chains  and  hooks 
to  the  men  beneath  and  carried  pots  and 
ladles  up  and  do^v^l  the  length  of  the  pouring- 
floor. 

"On  the  twelfth  of  last  December  Newton 
Allen,  up  in  the  cage  of  his  100-ton  electric 
crane,  was  requested  by  a  ladleman  from  be- 
low to  pick  up  a  pot  and  carry  it  to  another 
part  of  the  floor.  This  pot  was  filled  with  the 
hot  slag  that  is  the  refuse  left  over  when  the 
pure  steel  has  been  run  oiF. 

"Newton  Allen  let  down  the  hooks  of  his 
crane.  The  ladleman  attached  those  hooks  to 
the  pot.  Newton  Allen  started  down  the  floor. 
Just  as  he  started,  one  of  the  hooks  slipped. 
There  was  no  shock  or  jar.  Newton  Allen 
was  warned  of  danger  only  by  the  fumes  that 
rose  toward  him.  He  at  once  reversed  his 
lever,  and,  when  his  crane  had  carried  him  to 
a  place  of  safetj--,  descended  and  hurried  back 
to  the  scene  of  the  accident.  He  saw  a  man 
lying  on  his  face.  He  heard  him  screaming. 
He  saw  that  he  was  being  roasted  by  the  slag 
[141] 


SOCIAL   RELIGION 

that  had  poured  out  of  the  pot.  He  ran  up  to 
him  and  turned  him  over. 

"  'At  that  time,'  said  Newton  Allen,  in  his 
testimony  before  the  jury,  'I  did  not  know  it 
was  my  brother.  It  was  not  till  I  turned  him 
over  that  I  recognized  him.  Then  I  saw  it 
was  my  brother  Ora.  I  asked  him  if  he  was 
burned  bad.  He  said,  *No,  not  to  be  afraid — 
he  was  not  burned  as  bad  as  I  thought.'  " 

Three  days  later  Ora  Allen  died  in  the  hos- 
pital of  the  Illinois  Steel  Company.  He  had 
told  liis  brother  he  wasn't  "burned  bad,"  but 
Ira  Miltimore,  the  doctor  who  attended  him, 
testified  that  his  death  was  due  to  a  "third- 
degree  burn  of  the  face,  neck,  arms,  forearms, 
hands,  back,  right  leg,  right  thigh,  and  left 
foot."  A  third  degree  burn  is  the  last  de- 
gree there  is.     There  is  no  fourth  degree. 

"But  why  did  the  hook  on  that  slag-pot 
slip?  Because  it  was  attached  merely  to  the 
rim  of  the  pot,  and  not  to  the  lugs.  That  pot 
had  no  lugs.  It  ought  to  have  had  them. 
Lugs  are  pieces  of  metal  that  project  from 
the  rim  of  the  pot,  like  ears.  They  are  put 
there  for  the  express  purpose  of  providing  a 
proper  and  secure  hold  for  the  hooks.  But 
[142] 


HUMAN    SACRIFICE 

they  had  been  broken  off  in  some  previous  ac- 
cident and  they  had  not  been  replaced.  On 
the  twelfth  of  last  December  the  ladleman  had 
been  obliged  to  use  the  mere  rim,  or  flange,  of 
the  pot,  and  with  that  precarious  attachment 
the  pot  had  been  hoisted  and  carried. 

"  'Is  it  dangerous  to  carry  a  pot  by  its 
flange?'  asked  the  deputy  coroner. 

"  *It  is,'  said  Newton  Allen,  'but  it  is  the 
duty  of  the  ladleman  to  put  the  hooks  on  the 
pot.    I  work  on  signal  from  him.' 

"Mike  Skiba,  the  ladleman,  being  sum- 
moned, testified  that  he  had  attached  the  hooks 
to  the  pot  by  the  flange,  but  that  he  had  no 
orders  against  attaching  them  in  that  way. 

"John  Pfister,  the  boss  ladleman,  Mike  Ski- 
ba's  superior,  said,  on  oath :  'I  have  no  orders 
not  to  raise  the  slag-pots  when  the  lugs  are 
broken  ofl*.' 

"George  L.  Danforth,  the  superintendent 
of  the  North  Open  Hearth  INlill,  an  expensive 
man,  who  might  himself  have  been  killed  on 
the  occasion  in  question,  because  his  duties 
oblige  him  to  frequent  all  jiarts  of  the  mill, 
testified  that  'pots  had  been  raised  in  the  man- 
ner described  for  three  or  i'our  years  and  that 
[  143  ] 


SOCIAL   RELIGION 

this  was  the  first  time  that  one  of  them  had 
faUen.' 

"What  did  the  jury  think?  It  thought  as 
follows : 

"  'We,  the  jury,  believe  that  slag-pots 
should  not  be  handled  without  their  lugs,  and 
we  recommend  that  the  lugs  be  replaced  before 
the  pots  are  used  in  the  future.'  "  ^ 

How  unnecessary,  how  barbarous,  is  such 
waste  of  human  life.  Sometimes  it  is  not  the 
life  that  is  lost,  yet  the  disaster  is  most  serious. 

A  boy  of  sixteen  went  to  work  in  a  machine 
shop  with  the  understanding  that  he  was  to 
do  odd  jobs  and  learn  the  trade.  A  short  time 
after  his  employment  he  was  asked  by  the  fore- 
man to  take  charge  of  an  intricate  machine. 
It  is  cheaper  to  employ  a  boy  of  sixteen  at 
$7.00  a  week  than  a  mechanic  at  $15.00.  The 
boy  protested,  but  his  protest  was  unlieeded. 
The  next  day  he  went  again  to  the  foreman 
with  the  statement  that  the  machine  was 
broken.  The  foreman  answered  him  roughly 
and  sent  him  back  to  his  place.  A  few  min- 
utes later  the  machine  did  break,  and  when 

^  Making   Steel    and    Killing    Men,    William    Hard,    Every- 
body's  Magazine,   November,   1907,   vol.    17,  pp.   584-583. 

[144] 


HUMAN   SACRIFICE 

the  boy  was  taken  home  from  the  hospital  the 
three  middle  fingers  of  his  right  hand  were 
gone.  For  life  this  boy  is  rendered  inefficient, 
his  earning  power  is  decreased  and  his  chance 
of  living  a  full  life  is  diminished  because  of 
the  carelessness  or  indifference  of  an  incompe- 
tent foreman. 

The  case  of  this  boy  is  one  among  tens  of 
thousands  which  is  never  heard  of  in  the  news- 
papers and  which  attracts  no  public  notice, 
but  which  is,  nevertheless,  as  serious  to  the  boy 
and  to  his  family  as  if  it  had  been  called  to 
public  attention  on  the  front  page  of  all  of 
the  great  city  dailies. 

There  are  accidents,  however,  which  do  re- 
ceive wide  publicity.  Take,  for  example,  the 
mine  disaster  at  Cherry,  Illinois.  Cherrj^  is  a 
typical  Illinois  coal  mining  town,  standing  out 
on  the  dull  prairie.  One  Saturday,  in  1910, 
while  men  were  at  work  in  the  second  and  third 
veins — 303  men  in  the  second  and  182  men 
in  the  third — a  car  containing  six  bales  of  hay 
was  sent  down  the  main  shaft  and  switched 
around  behind  other  cars  to  the  air  shaft. 
Here  it  was  pushed  back  into  the  air  passage 
out  of  the  way,  and  the  hay  caught  fire  from 
[145] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

a  torch.  Eventually  the  fire  in  the  car  was 
extinguished,  the  hay  was  dumped  to  the  third 
vein  and  the  fire  put  out,  but,  in  the  meantime, 
this  fire  had  communicated  itself  to  the  air 
shaft — the  emergency  exit — which  contained 
wooden  stairs.  These  stairs  took  fire,  and  at 
once  cut  off  the  only  means  of  exit  from  the 
mine.  The  engineer  continued  to  lower  and 
hoist  the  cage  until  all  of  the  men  who  were 
alive  had  been  brought  to  the  surface.  Then 
the  entrance  to  the  mine  was  closed  up  and 
sealed  in  an  attempt  to  smother  the  fire  which 
had  spread  rapidly  through  the  mine.  Those 
miners  who  were  not  burned  were  overcome 
by  the  gases  which  at  once  collected.  In  all, 
360  men  lost  their  lives  in  this  disaster,  because 
the  emergency  exit,  made  of  wood  instead  of 
steel  or  cement,  was  one  of  the  most  inflam- 
mable things  in  the  mine ;  because  there  was  no 
organized  system  of  fire  drill  or  alarm,  which 
could  warn  the  men  of  danger ;  because  of  the 
official  carelessness  which  permitted  open 
torches  near  cars  of  hay ;  because,  finally,  there 
was  an  utter  lack  of  any  adequate  provisions 
for  saving  the  miners  in  case  of  disaster. 
Mine  disasters  are  not  new.  They  have  oc- 
[  146] 


HUMAN   SACRIFICE 

curred  before  and  continue  to  occur  with  fear- 
ful regularity.  Indeed,  so  frequent  and  so 
regular  are  the  disasters  that  a  speaker  recently 
declared  that  it  was  a  misnomer  to  describe 
them  as  industrial  "accidents,"  since  an  acci- 
dent is  unlooked  for,  while  mine  casualties  may 
be  predicted  with  a  reasonable  degree  of  cer- 
tainty. 

The  disaster  at  Cherry  was  a  typical  "big" 
accident — one  which  occurs  once  in  a  decade 
and  which  wins  wide  newspaper  publicity. 
The  great  majority  of  accidents  differ  essen- 
tially from  this  "disaster"  type.  Disasters  are 
infrequent,  and  the  number  killed  and  injured 
in  disasters  is  insignificant  in  comparison  with 
the  numbers  killed  and  injured  in  individual 
accidents.  The  statement  is  well  illustrated 
by  the  statistics  of  coal  mine  accidents  in  the 
United  States  in  1906.  In  gas,  powder,  and 
dust  explosions  308  men  were  killed  and  522 
were  injured,  while  in  all  other  forms  of  ac- 
cidents 1,740  were  killed  and  4,055  were  in- 
jured. Disasters  are  more  fre(]uent  in  the 
mines  than  anyivhere  else,  except  perhaps  in 
railroading,  yet  the  number  of  persons  killed 
and  injured  in  these  mine  disasters  consti- 
[  147  1 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

tuted  only  one-seventh  of  the  total  deaths  and 
injuries. 

Do  you  know  that  we  kill  a  greater  num- 
ber of  miners,  both  in  proportion  to  the  num- 
ber of  men  employed  and  to  the  number  of 
tons  mined,  than  England,  France,  Germany, 
or  Belgium?  Do  you  know  that,  while  the 
mine  accident  rate  in  all  of  these  countries  is 
decreasing,  it  is  actually  increasing  in  the 
United  States?  Yet  many  of  the  mines  of 
Europe  are  thousands  of  feet  below  the  sur- 
face, and  the  difficulties  and  dangers  attending 
upon  mining  there  are  infinitely  greater  than 
the  dangers  encountered  in  the  United  States. 

This  failure  to  protect  the  miners  is  one 
great  challenge  of  the  effectiveness  of  our  civ- 
ilization. More  than  that,  it  is  a  personal  chal- 
lenge to  you  and  to  me,  for  each  time  that 
we  use  coal,  or  that  coal  is  used  in  keeping  us 
warm,  in  transporting  us  or  in  feeding  us, 
we  are  using  up  a  commodity  which  is  pro- 
duced at  a  wholly  needless  expenditure  of 
human  pain  and  human  life. 

Equaling  the  mine  accidents  in  fatality,  but 
far  exceeding  them  in  extent,  are  the  railroad 
accidents.  Every  few  weeks  or  months  the 
[148] 


HUMAN   SACRIFICE 

papers  describe,  under  black  headlines,  some 
awful  wreck,  in  which  Uves  were  sacrificed 
wholesale — either  because  a  switch  was  left 
open,  a  coupling  broke,  a  slip  had  deposited 
stone  or  dirt  on  the  track,  or  because  one  or 
more  of  a  score  of  minor  causes  had  contrib- 
uted to  the  accident. 

A  short  time  ago,  as  a  heavily  loaded 
passenger  train  was  passing  over  a  long 
trestle,  the  rails  spread,  letting  two  of  the 
coaches  drop  forty  feet  into  the  chasm  be- 
low. Nearly  two  score  of  men  and  wom- 
en were  killed  and  numbers  were  injured. 
Rails  should  never  spread  on  a  trestle. 
At  all  such  danger  points  special  precaution 
should  be  taken  to  insure  against  accident.  It 
may  be  that  inspection  should  be  more  fre- 
quent ;  it  may  be  that  the  rails  should  be  relaid 
every  six  months — whatever  the  remedy,  some 
means  exist  for  preventing  such  fiendish 
butcheries.  When  I  say  some  means  exist,  I 
speak  advisedly,  for  European  countries,  in 
spite  of  denser  traffic,  maintain  a  speed  equal 
to  that  of  our  trains  with  but  a  fraction  of  the 
accidents. 

These  great  railroad  disasters,  like  explo- 
[  149  1 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

sions  in  coal  mines,  are  unusual;  they  consti- 
tute the  exception — not  the  rule.  As  in  coal 
mines,  seven  times  as  many  persons  are  killed 
and  injured  by  the  minor  accidents — falls  of 
rock,  jamming  between  cars,  and  the  like — so 
in  railroading  the  great  majority  of  persons 
are  killed  and  injured  by  twos  and  threes, 
swelling  the  total  until  the  Interstate  Com- 
merce Commission  reports  approximately  a 
hundred  thousand  deaths  and  injuries  on  the 
railroads  of  the  United  States  for  each  twelve 
months. 

We  know  little  of  factory  accidents  except 
that  they  do  happen.  Fingers  are  crushed; 
arms  are  amputated;  men  are  caught  in  fly- 
wheels and  whirled  to  their  death ;  blast  furnaces 
are  run  until  they  burst,  scattering  showers  of 
molten  metal  on  all  of  the  workmen  within 
reaching  distance.  These  are  but  a  few  of  the 
forms  in  which  accidents  reach  the  factorj^ 
worker.  Cogs  may  be  inclosed;  machines 
guarded;  fly-wheels  sheathed;  and  blast  fur- 
naces repaired  before  the  exploding  point  has 
been  reached;  nevertheless,  when  we  build  a 
blast  furnace,  we  guess  it  is  going  to  last  for- 
ever. Sometimes  we  guess  ourselves  a  thou- 
[  150  ] 


HUMAN   SACRIFICE 

sand  tons  of  pig  iron  and  sometimes  an  incan- 
descent grave.  It  is  all  a  guess,  and  we  revel 
in  it. 

Consider,  for  a  moment,  the  subject  of  street 
car  accidents.  In  New  York  City  between 
two  and  three  hundred  persons  are  killed  each 
year  by  the  street  cars.  In  other  American 
cities  the  number  decreases  in  proportion  to 
the  population,  until,  in  a  city  like  Los  An- 
geles, California,  the  number  averages  between 
sixty  and  eighty  per  year.  Contrast  these  ap- 
palling totals  with  the  number  for  Liverpool, 
England,  where  4  persons  are  killed  in  a  year. 

Why  does  this  difference  exist?  Simply  be- 
cause in  Liverpool  a  fender  has  been  placed 
on  the  cars  which  practicallj'^  rubs  the  street 
on  all  sides,  making  it  impossible  for  anything 
— even  a  baseball — to  get  under  the  car. 
Liverpool  is  not  alone  in  its  guarding  of  street 
cars.  All  of  the  leading  cities  of  Europe  re- 
port street  car  accident  rates  far  below  those 
of  the  leading  American  cities. 

Could  we  not  adopt  similar  devices  in  the 
United  States?  Could  we  not  protect  our  citi- 
zens from  death  under  street  cars?  Certainly, 
but  it  costs  money.  In  the  words  of  one  street 
[151] 


SOCIAL   RELIGION 

railroad  president:  "Do  you  think  I'm  going 
to  pay  $50  each  for  those  patent  fenders  when 
I  can  get  the  ones  I  am  using  now  for  $7.50?" 
Certainly  not,  for  remember  that  the  street 
raih'oad,  existing  to  make  profits  rather  than 
to  serve  the  pubHc,  is  not  doing  anything 
which  does  not  pay. 

Dehberately  we  hold  the  balance.  On  one 
side  are  dividends;  on  the  other  human  lives. 
The  dividends  are  weightier :  the  balance  sinks. 
Do  you  hear  that  little  girl  shrieking  as  she  is 
rolled  under  the  wheels  by  a  cheap  fender? 

Mine  accidents,  railroad  accidents,  accidents 
in  factories,  on  structural  work,  and  in  miscel- 
laneous industries  are  alarmingly  frequent  in 
all  parts  of  the  United  States.  The  best 
studies  of  the  subject  indicate  that  slightly 
more  than  half  a  million  men  and  women  and 
children  are  killed  or  injured  each  year  by  in- 
dustrial casualties.  In  the  words  of  Mr. 
Arthur  B.  Reeve:  "It  is  not  unwarrantable 
to  assert  that  we  send  to  the  hospital  or  the 
graveyard  one  worker  every  minute  of  the 
year."  Such  figures  stagger  the  imagination, 
but  they  emphasize  the  far-reaching  impor- 
tance of  industrial  accidents. 
[152] 


HUMAN   SACRIFICE 

The  death  of  the  breadwinner  is  a  disaster 
to  any  family.  The  statistics  of  industrial  ac- 
cidents show  that  the  majority  of  those  who 
are  killed  are  between  twenty  and  thirty-five 
years  of  age.  Even  unmarried  workers  are, 
in  most  cases,  supporting  in  part  or  in  whole 
some  family  group,  so  that  the  industrial  acci- 
dent, whether  to  married  or  single  men,  usually 
results  in  family  disaster. 

The  industrial  accident  comes  suddenly.  It 
is,  in  a  measure,  unforeseen.  There  is  another 
group  of  industrial  casualties,  however,  where 
the  risk  is  deliberate.  I  refer  to  the  so-called 
dangerous  trades,  which  result  in  industrial 
diseases. 

Industrial  diseases  are  the  product  of  a  long 
period  of  exposure  to  the  dangers  of  danger- 
ous trades.  Certain  trades,  such,  for  example, 
as  structural  iron  work,  grinding,  polishing, 
work  with  lead,  and  with  phosphorus,  and 
other  similar  trades,  are  noted  for  the  high 
risk  which  their  maintenance  involves.  In  such 
trades  the  death  rate  is  much  higher  than  the 
average  death  rate  of  the  community. 

The  man  who  enters  a  white  lead  works,  or 
a  paint  factory,  ultimately  finds,  if  he  is  work- 
[  153  ] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

ing  in  contact  with  lead,  that  his  food  does  not 
digest;  that  there  is  a  blue  line  on  his  gums; 
that,  finally,  his  teeth  are  falling  out.  His 
doctor  says:  "Lead  poisoning.  G^t  another 
job,  or  you'll  die."  If  the  man  stays  he  will 
die.  If  he  leaves  his  position  and  seeks,  with 
his  decreased  vitality,  to  find  a  new  occupation 
he  learns  what  lead  poisoning  really  costs. 

In  other  dangerous  trades  similar  risks  exist. 
Coal  miners  contract  asthma.  A  miner's  lung 
tissue  is  often  black  from  the  fine  particles 
of  coal  dust  which  have  penetrated  through 
the  bronchial  tubes.  Phosphorus  workers 
contract  an  insidious  disease  from  contact  with 
white  phosphorus  which  results  in  the  decay 
of  the  jaw  bone.  Grinders  and  polishers,  fill- 
ing their  lungs  with  tiny  particles  of  metal, 
open  the  way  for  tuberculosis.  On  entering 
such  a  trade  a  workman,  if  he  is  familiar  with 
the  facts,  knows  well  that  he  runs  a  risk  higher 
than  that  of  his  fellow  workers  in  other  indus- 
tries. Yet  to  offset  this  increased  risk,  as  a 
rule,  wages  are  little  higher  than  in  other 
trades  demanding  similar  skill.  The  burden 
of  dangerous  trades,  like  the  burden  of  acci- 
dents, is  borne  by  the  worker  and  his  famih'. 
'     [  154  ] 


HUMAN    SACRIFICE 

This  is  one  of  the  most  significant  things  in 
the  whole  discussion  of  industrial  accidents  and 
industrial  diseases.  The  worker  bears  the  bur- 
den. The  studies  recently  completed  in  Pitts- 
burg and  New  York  under  the  direction  of 
JNIiss  Crystal  Eastman  indicate  beyond  the 
shadow  of  a  doubt  that  the  family  of  a 
worker  is  the  chief  burden  bearer  in  the  case 
of  the  great  majoritj^  of  industrial  accidents. 
There  are  certain  trades  in  which  accidents  are 
expected  to  occur;  certain  industries,  such  as 
the  manufacture  of  lead  and  of  yellow  phos- 
phorus matches,  involve  unusual  industrial 
risks.  Obviously,  then,  these  industries  should 
bear  the  burden  of  their  own  danger.  If  a 
worker  enters  a  dangerous  trade,  he  should  be 
compensated  for  the  danger  which  he  incurs. 
When  the  public  chooses  to  use  the  j^roducts  of 
such  a  dangerous  trade,  they  sliould  pay  for 
the  higher  wages  in  an  increased  cost  of  the 
product.  Could  they  well  do  less  in  return  for 
the  sacrifice  of  health  and  life? 

What  need  is  there  for  dwelling  longer  on 
this  human  sacrifice?  INIen,  women,  and  chil- 
dren, too,  go  down  daily  from  Jerusalem  to 
Jericho ;  they  fall  among  thieves  who  rob  them 
[  loo  1 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

of  vitality  and  life;  leave  them  sometimes 
wounded,  sometimes  dead.  Meanwhile  you 
stand  by  witnessing  the  assault ;  you  read  daily 
of  railroad  accidents  and  mine  explosions ;  you 
hear  of  the  ravages  of  occupational  disease; 
yet  you  do  not  raise  a  finger  to  check  the 
slaughter.  The  priest,  the  Levite,  and  the  Sa- 
maritan came  by  after  the  thieves  had  finished 
their  work.  They  did  not  see  them  set  upon 
their  victim.  They  were  powerless  to  prevent 
the  robbery.  In  Christian  charity  we  must 
suppose  that,  had  they  been  near  at  hand  when 
the  assault  took  place,  they  would  have  rushed 
to  the  assistance  of  the  wayfarer.  But  you, 
two  thousand  years  later,  look  on  apathetically 
while  armies  of  men  and  women  are  struck 
down  on  the  broad  highway  of  industrial  prog- 
ress. Nay,  you  go  even  further,  for  you  use 
the  products  in  the  manufacture  of  which 
these  men  and  women  were  sacrificed. 

Had  the  priest  and  the  Levite  shared  in  the 
spoil  taken  by  the  thieves  from  the  Good  Sa- 
maritan, how  you  would  scorn  them!  Yet 
each  time  that  jou  burn  a  ton  of  coal,  or  a 
white  phosphorus  match,  you  are  using  up  hu- 
man health  and  human  life.  What  then?  Must 
[156] 


HUMAN    SACRIFICE 

we  cease  to  use  these  products?  By  no  means, 
but  we  must  throw  around  their  manufacture 
the  safeguards  which  science  offers  and  which 
humanity  demands.  Let  us  stand  shoulder  to 
shoulder  with  the  civilized  nations  of  Europe 
in  the  suppression  of  accidents  and  the  regula- 
tion of  dangerous  trades. 


[157] 


CHAPTER  X 
REAPING  THE  YOUNG  GRAIN 

If  that  classic  saying  is  true,  that  those 
whom  the  gods  love  die  young,  the  gods  must 
have  a  strong  affection  for  the  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  Americans  who  are  every  year 
dj'^ing  in  the  prime  of  life.  Last  year,  of  the 
1,500,000  deaths  in  the  United  States,  630,000, 
or  nearly  half,  were  preventable — this  is,  they 
were  premature.  Six  hundred  and  thirty  thou- 
sand times  in  that  one  year  we  cut  down  a 
stalk  of  young  grain — robbed  ourselves 
through  this  untimely  harvest  of  the  lives  of 
more  than  one-half  a  million  human  beings. 

Year  follows  year  during  which  this  waste 
of  manhood  and  womanhood  continues.  On 
everj^  side,  journeying  through  a  great,  pros- 
perous country,  replete  with  life's  possibilities, 
equipped  to  do,  eager  to  strive,  these  hundreds 
of  thousands  go  down  before  the  sweep  of  the 
[158] 


REAPING  THE   YOUNG  GRAIN 

fatal  scythe.  We  are  reaping  the  young 
grain.    How  shall  we  fare  at  harvest? 

The  male  white  children  born  to  American 
parents  in  American  cities  live,  on  the  average, 
31  years.  Take  the  allotted  span  of  life — 
three  score  years  and  ten — divide  it  in  half, 
and  then  subtract  four  from  the  half,  and 
j'^ou  have  the  average  length  of  life  of 
white  males  born  of  native  American  city 
dwellers. 

Last  winter  there  was  a  fire  in  New  York. 
Six  hundred  girls  were  trapjied  on  the  eighth 
and  ninth  floors  of  a  fireproof  building.  Some 
were  burned  where  they  stood;  others  jumped 
one  hundred  and  thirtj^  feet  to  the  pavement 
— in  all,  one  hvmdred  and  fifty  of  the  six  hun- 
dred perished.  The  average  age  of  those  one 
hundred  and  fifty  girls  was  nineteen  years. 
With  life  barely  begun,  its  possibilities  un- 
tried and  unknown,  these  children  of  nineteen 
were  "reaped  at  a  breath." 

A  boy  of  twenty-two  started  on  his  second 
trip  as  a  traveling  salesman.  His  first  trip 
had  been  a  great  success — no  salesman  in  the 
employ  of  the  firm  had  ever  done  better  work 
— and  he  started  on  this  second  venture  full  of 
[  l.VJ  ] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

the  promise  of  a  successful  life.  An  hour  had 
passed  since  he  climbed  into  his  berth  on  the 
night  express.  The  train  was  late,  making 
sixty  miles  an  hour.  A  freight  train  on  the 
next  track  was  suddenly  stopped,  and,  because 
of  the  improper  air-brake  equipment,  the 
train  "buckled" — that  is,  several  of  the  cars  in 
the  center  of  the  long  train  left  the  rails  and 
rolled  over  on  the  neighboring  track  in  front 
of  the  night  express.  There  was  a  crash;  en- 
gines, cars,  splintered  wood,  twisted  iron  and 
human  bodies  heaped  up  in  one  great  pile ;  and 
the  next  day  the  body  of  the  promising  young 
salesman  lay  in  his  father's  house. 

Here,  in  premature  death,  appears  the  prod- 
uct of  all  of  the  forces  which  I  have  thus  far 
described.  Low  standards  of  living  lay  the 
foundation;  child  labor,  overwork,  accidents, 
insanitation,  erect  the  superstructure;  and,  be- 
hold, a  scaffold,  built  up  of  modern  social  con- 
ditions, upon  which  men,  women,  and  children 
are  ruthlessly  executed  by  the  hundreds  of 
thousands. 

Suppose  that  to-morrow  ten  innocent  men 
were  hanged  in  Albany — the  whole  nation 
would  rise  in  protest;  newspapers  and  maga- 
[160] 


REAPING  THE   YOUNG  GRAIN 

zines  would  vie  with  one  another  in  their  ef- 
forts to  secure  reparation;  editorials  would  be 
written,  sermons  preached,  and  petitions 
signed;  yet  each  week  twelve  thousand  pre- 
ventable deaths  occur  in  the  United  States. 
The  reaper  is  at  work  with  his  keen  scythe  in 
the  young  grain,  and  we  pass  by  on  the  other 
side,  satisfied  that  we  are  still  playing  our  own 
parts,  content  so  that  we  are  not  of  the  vic- 
tims. 

In  the  Scripture  we  are  told  that  our  span 
of  life  is  three  score  years  and  ten,  yet  from 
nation  to  nation,  from  city  to  city,  and  from 
one  city  ward  to  another,  we  find  a  great  varia- 
tion in  the  age  of  death.  Thus  in  Sweden  the 
length  of  life  for  males  is  53.9  years;  in 
France,  45.7  years;  in  England  and  Wales, 
44.1  years;  in  Massachusetts,  44.1  years;  in 
Italy,  42.8  years;  and  in  India,  23.0  years. 
Prof.  Irving  Fisher  writes :  "When  we  consider 
that  the  average  duration  of  life  in  India  is 
scarcely  more  than  one-half  that  of  Sweden, 
we  must  conclude  that  the  length  of  human  life 
is  dependent  on  definite  conditions  and  can 
be  increased  or  diminished  by  a  modification 
of  those  conditions." 

[161] 


SOCIAL   RELIGION 

A  short  duration  of  life  may  be  justly  an- 
ticipated in  India,  where  families  crowd  to- 
gether, in  terror  of  famines  and  plagues ;  while 
Sweden,  with  a  less  densely  settled  territory, 
advanced  systems  of  government  and  indus- 
try, and  stable  economic  conditions,  might  be 
expected  to  insure  a  longer  life.  A  careful 
study  shows  that,  generally  speaking,  some 
definite  relation  exists  between  longevity  and 
the  circumstances  of  life.  The  length  of  life 
is  thus  determined,  not  by  any  inherent  inca- 
pacity in  man  to  live,  but  by  the  social  condi- 
tions surrounding  the  lives  of  the  people.  We 
may  not,  therefore,  resign  ourselves  hopelessly 
before  this  harvest  of  young  grain,  saying 
plaintively:  "It  is  the  will  of  God."  Rather 
must  we  determine  that  the  conditions  produc- 
ing the  premature  death  shall  be  altered  in 
this  generation. 

Many  men  die  because  of  the  occupation  in 
which  they  are  engaged.  There  is  a  very  di- 
rect connection  between  mortality  and  the 
trades  in  which  men  work.  For  instance,  in 
all  occupations  fifteen  males  die  each  year  for 
every  thousand  employed.  For  boot  and  shoe- 
makers the  number  is  9 ;  for  farmers  and  farm 
[  102  ] 


REAPING  THE    YOUNG  GRAIN 

laborers,  11;  for  tailors,  13;  for  merchants  and 
dealers,  14;  iron  and  steel  makers,  15;  textile 
operatives,  15;  blacksmiths,  16;  marble  and 
stone  workers,  17;  bookkeepers  and  clerks,  19; 
brewers  and  distillers,  21 ;  cigar  and  tobacco 
makers,  22;  servants,  22;  and  laborers,  22.  If 
you  are  employed  as  a  laborer,  you  have  more 
than  twice  the  chance  of  death  than  you  would 
have  if  you  were  a  shoemaker. 

The  length  of  life  is  thus  a  varying  factor, 
being  largely  determined,  not  as  is  generally 
supposed,  by  the  wearing  out  of  the  human 
body,  but  by  the  conditions  of  environment, 
such  as  climate  and  occupation,  which  surround 
the  individual.  For  each  100,000  persons  ten 
years  of  age  in  the  middle  income  classes  of 
the  United  States,  insurance  companies  tell 
us  that  51,000  will  die  before  they  reach  their 
sixty-fifth  year.  The  years  of  highest  mor- 
tality are  the  first  ten,  yet  even  when  these 
first  ten  are  past,  the  danger  to  life  is  still  so 
great  that  less  than  one-half  of  the  people  live 
to  a  normal  age — to  the  allotted  three  score 
years  and  ten.  But  these  figures  refer  to  the 
middle  classes.  The  available  insurance  sta- 
tistics indicate  that  the  death  rate  among  wage 
I  103  1 


SOCIAL   RELIGION 

workers  is  certainly  50  per  cent.,  and  perhaps 
100  per  cent.,  higher  than  that  among  the  mid- 
dle classes.  Were  statistics  available,  showing 
accurately  the  death-rate  among  the  lower  in- 
come classes  in  the  United  States,  they  would 
indicate  to  us  that  perhaps  thirty-five  thousand 
of  the  one  hundred  thousand  children  who 
started  the  race  of  life  at  ten  years  would  ever 
reach  sixty-five. 

The  best  work  of  life  should  be  done  in  the 
later  years,  after  experience  has  been  broad- 
ened, and  judgment  has  been  rendered  stable 
and  sure.  Yet  of  the  100,000  who  start  at 
the  age  of  ten  only  a  fraction  reach  mature 
years,  because  their  ranks  have  been  woefully 
depleted  by  the  ravages  incident  to  modern 
fife. 

Though  these  conditions  are  unsatisfactory, 
they  are  continually  improving.  Life  is  each 
year  lengthening.  We  know  from  our  scien- 
tific researches  that  the  possibilities  of  life  are 
far  in  advance  of  their  present  realization. 
We  know  that  by  social  cooperation  we  could 
greatly  decrease  our  present  mortality.  In 
Prussia  efforts  in  this  direction  have  met  with 
[164] 


REAPING  THE   YOUNG  GRAIN 

such  success  that  life  is  being  prolonged  at 
the  rate  of  twenty-seven  years  in  each  century, 
a  rate  which,  if  maintained,  wiU,  in  2000  A.  D., 
make  the  average  length  of  life  in  Prussia 
nearly  sixty  years. 

Why  should  I  emphasize  this  point?  Why 
waste  your  time  and  mine  in  making  clear  an 
obvious  proposition?  Men  and  women  have 
been  dying,  and  still  are  unnecessarily  dying, 
by  tens  of  thousands.  We  are  acquainted  with 
the  causes  of  their  deaths ;  we  have  determined 
certain  remedies  which  need  be  applied  to  pre- 
vent them  from  dying;  the  way  is  plain,  the 
will  seems  to  be,  I  will  not  say,  lacking,  but 
rather  inactive.  It  must  be  galvanized  into 
life. 

Are  you  aware  of  the  problem?  Is  your 
will  among  those  which  are  reacting  violently 
against  these  intolerable  conditions?  Are  you 
playing  the  part  of  the  priest,  the  Levite,  or 
the  Samaritan?  The  priest  passed  by  on  the 
other  side,  he  was  unacquainted  with  the  facts. 
You  are  no  longer  on  the  other  side,  you  are 
no  longer  ignorant.  You  have  looked  on  the 
wounded  man,  you  are,  therefore,  the  Levite 
[165] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

who  saw  and  knew.  Will  you,  like  him,  pass 
by  on  the  other  side,  or  will  j^ou  follow  the 
example  of  the  Good  Samaritan  and  render 
the  service  which  justice  and  humanity  de- 
mand of  you? 


[166] 


CHAPTER  XI 
,THE    SILVER   LINING 

'Must  these  things  go  on  forever?  INIust  men 
always  be  underpaid  and  overworked?  Must 
&ve  thousand  children  in  a  wealth}^  city  be 
"habitually  hungry"?  INIust  women  continue 
to  fight  the  losing  battle  that  leads  them  to 
the  brothel?  JNIust  society"  always  rest  upon 
the  mangled  lives  of  motherless  girls,  of  hag- 
gard men,  of  toiling  children,  of  overworked 
and  underpaid  humanity? 

We  believe  not.  We  talk  and  think  of  a 
lieaven  where  "there  shall  be  neither  sorrow 
nor  crying,  nor  any  more  pain";  where  there 
will  be  "many  mansions";  where  the  streets 
will  be  all  golden ;  where  the  river  of  the  water 
of  life  runs  clear  as  crystal;  where  love  will 
be  the  dominant  motive  of  life;  where  we  shall 
abide  forever.  Yes,  and  more  tlian  tliat,  for 
we  pray  "Thy  kingdom  come  on  earth  as  it  is 
in  heaven."  We  want  thy  kingdom  liere! 
[107] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

We  want  heaven  on  earth,  many  mansions, 
golden  streets,  crystal  water,  playgrounds, 
joyous  sunshine — opportunity  to  grow  and 
worship  unhampered  by  the  bonds  of  social 
maladjustment;  we  want  heaven  on  earth,  and 
we  can  have  it  if  we  will. 

A  dream!  Yes,  but  Jesus  dreamed  that 
dream,  and  Plato  and  Paul  and  all  of  the  phi- 
losophers and  poets  of  the  ages.  They  all  fore- 
saw this  millennium — this  heaven  on  earth — 
and  their  dream  is  coming  true. 

I  have  led  you  through  the  valley  of  the 
shadow  of  living  death,  I  have  shown  you  the 
night,  but  the  night  is  far  spent,  the  day  is 
at  hand  and  already  we  behold  the  dawning. 
Winter  is  passing ;  spring  is  close  behind.  We 
are  a  wealthy  nation ;  we  can  afford  to  pay  liv- 
ng  wages ;  we  are  an  enlightened  people ;  our 
v'omen  are  ceasing  to  be  beasts  of  burden; 
we  are  a  far-seeing  nation;  we  are  protecting 
and  safeguarding  childhood.  Corn  wiU  feed 
the  hungry,  and  we  have  plenty  of  corn.  Cot- 
ton and  wool  and  lumber  wiU  provide  clothing 
and  shelter  for  the  destitute,  and  we  produce 
an  abundance  of  these.  Poverty  is  unneces- 
sary, destitution  must  cease.  Modern  industry 
[168] 


THE    SILVER   LINING 

has  created  sufficient  economic  goods.  It  is 
merely  the  archaic  system  of  distribution  which 
has  nullified  our  productive  triumphs,  creating 
one  class  with  boundless  possessions  and  an- 
other with  the  barest  necessities  of  animal  ex- 
istence. 

Adjustment  is  possible,  but  is  it  worth 
while?  We  produce  enough  economic  goods 
to  feed,  clothe,  shelter,  and  educate  every  man, 
woman,  and  child  in  the  United  States,  but 
are  they  capable  of  enhghtenment?  Perhaps 
you  beheve  in  the  doctrine  of  total  depravity. 
These  boys  and  girls  were  born  into  wicked- 
ness and  sin — why  seek  to  rescue  or  save  them? 
A  devout  old  lady  once  said  that  she  liked 
the  doctrine  of  total  depravity  because  it  was 
a  comfortable  doctrine,  but  she  had  never 
known  anybody  who  lived  up  to  it.  We  are 
all  in  her  class.  We  like  the  doctrine,  but  we 
never  meet  any  one  to  whom  it  fully  applies. 

We  have  changed  our  ideas  of  crime,  pov- 
erty, and  efficiency.  The  old  view  held  crime 
to  be  the  result  of  natural  depravity;  the  new 
view  maintains  that  it  is  the  product  of  a  dis- 
eased body  or  a  bad  environment.  The  old 
view  described  poverty  and  misery  as  the  re- 
[169] 


SOCIAL   RELIGION 

suit  of  personal  choice.  Modern  investiga- 
tion has  established  beyond  the  possibility  of 
doubt  that  the  causes  of  poverty  and  misery 
are  not  personal  but  social.  The  old  view 
classified  men  as  efficient  or  inefficient,  accord- 
ing to  their  birth.  Modern  science  indicates 
that  nine-tenths  of  all  men  born  are  born  ap- 
proximately normal,  and  that  environment  and 
opportunity  are  the  chief  factors  which  de- 
termine whether  their  lives  shall  be  efficient  or 
otherwise. 

We  believe  in  the  innate  goodness  of  men. 
"Now  are  we  the  sons  of  God."  Hence,  no 
matter  how  concealed,  there  is,  in  each  person, 
that  divine  spark  called  conscience — a  soul. 
Go  among  the  most  savage  men  and  the  most 
abandoned  women,  and  you  will  find  that  when 
opportunity  presents  itself  they  rise  to  the 
occasion  and  demonstrate  beyond  question 
their  nobility  and  manhood.  There  is,  for  in- 
stance, a  boy  in  Philadelphia  who  is  little  more 
than  fifteen,  yet  there  is  no  crime  in  the  calen- 
dar, with  the  possible  exception  of  murder, 
that  he  would  hesitate  to  commit.  He  sells 
newspapers  on  the  street  all  night,  and  is  fa- 
miliar with  the  worst  people  and  the  worst 
[170] 


THE    SILVER    LINING 

dives  in  the  city.  One  night  when  he  left  home 
his  dog  followed  him  to  his  usual  beat  up- 
town. Twice  he  tried  to  drive  her  home,  then, 
finding  this  impossible,  he  secured  an  old 
paper,  and  each  time  that  he  stopped  in  his 
selling,  he  laid  this  paper  on  the  cold,  damp 
pavement,  and  called  the  dog  to  a  comfortable 
bed  until  the  time  came  for  them  to  move  on 
again. 

Jacob  Riis  tells  a  splendid  story  of  one  New 
York  criminal,  a  mere  boy,  who  was  a  terror 
to  the  police.  One  day  he  was  arrested,  after 
a  severe  fight,  by  two  sturdy  policemen,  and 
the  three  started  together  for  the  station  house. 
On  the  way  they  came  to  a  cable  car  track,  in 
the  middle  of  which  stood  a  child  gaily  beckon- 
ing to  an  onrushing  car,  which  was  beyond  the 
control  of  the  motorman.  The  child's  fate 
seemed  sealed  and  rescue  impossible.  Both 
policemen  turned  away  that  they  might  not 
witness  the  catastrophe.  Their  grip  was  for 
a  moment  loosened,  and  their  prisoner,  with 
the  agility  and  strength  of  a  tiger,  wrenched 
himself  from  their  grasp  and  was  gone.  The 
policemen  turned  as  the  car  rushed  past,  ex- 
pecting to  see  a  mangled  body  on  the  tracks 
[171] 


SOCIAL   RELIGION 

and  a  young  desperado  speeding  toward 
safety,  but,  instead,  there,  across  the  street, 
stood  the  ruffian  with  the  child  in  his  arms.  A 
quick  eye,  steady  nerves,  and  supreme  self- 
confidence  had  enabled  him  to  save  a  life. 

Neither  of  these  boys  was  bad.  Each  was 
at  bottom  a  man,  a  real  man,  with  all  of  man- 
hood's instincts;  yet,  on  the  outside,  so  per- 
verted and  so  seared  by  contact  with  a  vicious 
world,  that  only  here  and  there  did  a  glimmer 
of  real  manliood  appear. 

Here  is  an  even  better  illustration  of  the 
work  of  environment  upon  a  child's  life.  A 
boy  born  into  a  squalid  home  in  a  big  city, 
playing  on  the  streets  and  staying  out  nights, 
became  at  fourteen  an  expert  thief  and  slot- 
machine  breaker — a  terror  to  the  neighbor- 
hood. Eventually  he  was  arrested  and  sent 
to  a  country  home  and  in  two  months  he  had 
settled  down  to  a  normal  life.  He  went  to 
school,  as  he  had  never  done  in  the  city;  he 
kept  clean,  as  he  could  not  do  in  his  tenement 
home;  and  he  was  honest,  for  there  were  no 
overwhelming  temptations  thrown  in  his  path. 
The  boy  was  apparently  reformed  and  went 
back  to  his  city  home.  In  three  weeks  he  and 
[  172  ] 


THE    SILVER   LINING 

his  gang  had  perpetrated  three  big  slot-ma- 
chine robberies;  he  had  spent  his  nights  in  the 
streets,  and  was  headed  straight  for  the  peni- 
tentiary. A  decent  home  would  have  saved 
that  boy,  but  his  home  was  not  decent,  and  be- 
cause of  the  lack  of  decency  he  was  damned. 

This  thought  is  well  illustrated  by  the  work 
of  Dr.  Bernardo,  who  took  tens  of  thousands 
of  boy  criminals  from  the  slums  of  EngHsh 
cities  and  put  them  on  farms  in  Canada  and 
Australia.  One  of  the  Canadian  agents  re- 
ports that,  of  2,000  of  these  embryo  criminals 
who  passed  through  his  hands,  less  than  2  per 
cent,  reverted  to  their  criminal  tendencies.  In 
their  homes  every  temptation  surrounded 
them.  There  was  neither  opportunity  nor  in- 
spiration for  right  doing,  but  every  incentive 
for  wrong  doing  which  a  great  city  can  offer. 
Their  new  lives  meant  reformation  and  right 
living. 

Thomas  Gray  says: 

"Full  many  a  gem  of  purest  ray  serene 
The  dark,  unfathomed  caves  of  ocean  bear, 
Full  many  a  flower  is  born  to  blusli  unseen 
And  waste  its  sweetness  on  tlie  desert  air." 

[  173  ] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

That  statement  is  scientifically  tine.  Among 
every  hundred  boys  who  are  born,  whether 
they  be  born  in  the  slums  or  on  the  right  side 
of  Commonwealth  Avenue,  approximately  90 
are  born  normal.  In  each  one  hundred  there 
are  a  few  geniuses  and  a  few  defectives,  but 
as  far  as  we  know  the  proportion  does  not 
vary  from  one  social  class  to  another.  At  birth 
men  and  women  in  every  social  class  are  the 
same.  Understand,  I  do  not  say  that  men 
and  women  are  born  equal.  They  are  born 
most  unequal,  but  what  I  do  maintain  is  that 
the  ordinary  viewpoint  which  holds  that  the 
proportion  of  worth-while  children  is  greater 
in  the  middle  and  upper  classes  than  it  is  in 
the  lower  income  classes  is  fundamentally 
wrong. 

I  have  discussed  the  cases  of  a  few  excep- 
tionally bad  boys,  and  pointed  out  that,  when 
opportunity  offered,  they  showed  themselves 
to  be  men.  These  boj^s  were  wasted — the  good 
material  in  them  was  unused  because  they  never 
had  an  opportunity  for  its  wise  employment. 
You  sympathize  with  them  and  commiserate 
them?  They  are  but  individual  cases.  Turn, 
now,  with  me  and  lament  over  a  society  which, 
[174] 


THE    SILVER   LINING 

through  its  failure  to  utilize  the  talent  at  its 
command,  is  every  year  sacrificing  untold 
sources  of  potential  achievement. 

We  have  heard  of  the  wastes  in  industry, 
but  they  have  become  a  thing  of  the  past.  The 
coal  operator  now  markets  the  small  particles 
of  coal  which  were  formerly  throAMi  upon  the 
culm  dump;  the  South  manufactures  $40,000,- 
000  worth  of  products  every  year  from  the 
once  useless  cotton  seed,  and  the  pork  packer 
is  said  to  use  every  part  of  the  hog  but  the 
squeal.  Our  business  men  are  conserving  the 
resources  of  industry.  How  much  more  should 
such  economy  be  practised  with  the  resources 
of  society,  since  it  is  upon  society's  resources 
that  industrial  progress  depends. 

The  social  waste  resulting  from  a  lack  of 
opportunity  may  be  classified  under  two  head- 
ings: On  the  one  hand  is  the  waste  of  child- 
hood; on  the  other,  the  waste  of  womanhood. 
Three-quarters  of  the  children  born  in  the 
United  States  have  no  legitimate  opportunity 
for  utihzing  whatever  capacity  they  may  pos- 
sess. 

"Surely,"   you   exclaim,   "surely  you  have 
forgotten  our  excellent  school  system!" 
[  175  ] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

By  no  means.  I  speak  after  a  careful  analy- 
sis of  the  results  derived  from  our  excellent 
school  system;  I  judge  that  system,  like  any 
other  tree,  by  its  fruit;  and  by  its  fruit  I  con- 
demn it.  Andrew  S.  Draper,  Commissioner 
of  Education  for  the  State  of  New  York, 
sums  up  the  whole  matter  in  these  words: 
"There  is  something  the  matter  with  the 
schools."  They  fail  to  hold  the  children;  they 
turn  them  out  illiterate;  they  fail  to  prepare 
them  for  life — "There  is  something  the  mat- 
ter with  the  schools." 

What  would  you  say  of  a  factory  that  was 
turning  out  stoves — four-fifths  of  them  in- 
complete? "Inefficient,  incompetently  man- 
aged," you  reply.  What  else  could  you  say 
of  a  school  system  in  which  four-fifths  of  the 
children  never  go  beyond  the  grammar  grades? 
You  would  condemn  that  likewise,  would  you 
not? 

Very  well,  but  you  are  condemning  the 
American  public  school  system,  for  only  one 
child  in  every  five,  who  enters  the  first  grade, 
reaches  the  end  of  the  grammar  school.  The 
result?  Illiteracy.  Examine  the  records,  and 
you  will  find  that,  in  Germany  and  Scandi- 
[  176  ] 


THE    SILVER    LINING 

navia,  those  who  can  neither  read  nor  write 
form  but  one-thousandth  of  the  population, 
while  in  the  United  States  one  hundred  and 
six  persons  out  of  every  thousand  are  wholly 
illiterate.  There  are  half  a  million  American 
children,  between  the  ages  of  10  and  15,  who 
can  neither  read  nor  write  their  own  names. 
No,  they  are  not  the  children  of  immigrants, 
for  the  vast  majority  of  them  were  born  in  the 
United  States. 

The  American  public  school  system  fails  to 
hold  the  children,  and  consequently  there  is  a 
high  percentage  of  illiteracy  in  the  United 
States.  Further,  and  more  seriously,  how- 
ever, the  school  system  fails  because  it  does 
not  prepare  the  children  for  life. 

The  object  of  education  is  complete  living. 
Therefore,  no  educational  system  is  a  success 
which  does  not  prepare  its  pupils  to  live. 

What  is  it — this  living?  Intellectual  gym- 
nastics is  a  small  part  of  it;  syntax  and  Latin 
occupy  a  tiny  corner  in  it;  geography  and 
history  have  a  little  place  there;  but  none  of 
these  things  nor  all  of  them  together  make  up 
a  life.  First,  there  is  the  body,  with  its  mul- 
titude of  wants;  then  the  mind,  with  its  grasp 
[177] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

of  things;  the  soul,  with  its  depth  of  feehng 
and  sympathy;  the  home,  in  which  the  woman 
labors;  the  industry,  which  takes  the  waking 
hours  of  the  man;  and,  finally,  the  leisure 
time,  which  men  and  women  will  either  make  or 
mar  as  they  use  or  misuse  it.  All  of  these  are 
a  part  of  life — together  they  complete  it. 

Now  tell  me  where,  in  this  great  United 
States,  has  any  school  system  made  a  definite 
attempt  to  produce  such  noble,  virile  speci- 
mens of  physical  manhood  and  womanhood  as 
those  who  walked  and  created  in  sunny  Greece, 
twenty  centuries  ago.  The  body  is  the  life 
machine;  it  is  the  tool  with  which  men  must 
always  do  their  work,  yet  nowhere  in  America 
has  any  consistent  attempt  been  made  to  de- 
velop beautiful,  perfect  bodies  in  our  school 
children.  Hear,  on  the  contrary,  the  report 
of  the  medical  inspectors,  that  thirty  per  cent, 
of  the  school  children  in  New  York  City  are 
physically  defective!  The  other  seven-tenths 
are  not  physically  developed  or  perfected — 
they  merely  escape  being  classed  as  defective. 
A  third  of  the  school  children  in  America's 
metropolis  physically  defective!  Is  there  not 
something  the  matter  with  the  schools? 
[178] 


THE    SILVER   LINING 

Granting,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  that 
the  mental  training  in  the  schools  prepares  the 
children  to  think — and  no  more  absurd  con- 
cession could  be  made — where,  in  our  school 
system,  has  any  consistent  attempt  been 
made  to  inculcate  into  the  children  ideals 
of  beauty,  sesthetic  concepts?  Individual 
teachers  have  tried  it  and  done  it,  but  it 
has  never  been  a  generally  recognized  school 
policy. 

The  women  of  America  are  working  in  the 
homes;  the  men  in  the  factories.  The  women 
bear  and  rear  the  children — thus  performing 
the  most  important  single  duty  in  the  whole 
range  of  social  achievements.  Where,  in  the 
public  schools  of  the  United  States,  has  any 
adequate  attempt  been  made  to  educate  these 
girls  for  their  motherhood?  They  sew,  cook 
and  keep  house,  while  the  men,  singling  out 
their  vocations,  spend  their  time  in  the  fac- 
tories and  mills ;  yet,  save  for  a  few  hesitating 
beginnings,  here  and  there,  no  consistent  at- 
tempt has  as  yet  been  made  to  teach  the  girls 
how  to  make  attractive  homes,  or  to  instruct 
tlie  boys  in  such  a  manner  that  they  would  be 
prepared  to  earn  good  incomes.  The  girls  and 
[  170  ] 


SOCIAL   RELIGION 

boys  go  into  the  home  and  into  industry;  they 
spend  their  lives  there;  but  the  school  has 
scarcely  one  word  to  say  to  them  regarding 
their  preparation  for  these  life-long  tasks.  For 
leisure,  the  time  in  which  men  and  women  may 
follow  their  own  sweet  wills,  doing  with  their 
time  whatever  they  see  fit,  the  school  provides 
little  instruction.  Averaging  forty  pupils  to 
a  class,  in  charge  of  girls  as  young  as  nine- 
teen years  of  age,  the  boys  and  girls  who  are 
to  constitute  the  next  generation  are  being 
ground  through  the  school  system  like  grain 
through  a  mill — all  subjected  to  the  same 
processes — all  emerging  as  nearly  as  possible 
of  the  same  type,  with  souls  crushed  and  in- 
dividuality marred ;  thoroughly  unprepared  to 
fight  the  battle  of  life. 

There  is  something  the  matter  with  the 
American  schools — they  do  not  prepare  for 
life.  The  children  leave  at  an  early  age — il- 
literate, uneducated,  uncultured — to  take  their 
places  among  the  other  incompetents.  The 
ability,  the  genius  of  four-fifths  of  the  chil- 
dren in  the  United  States  has  no  legitimate 
outlet — no  means  of  development.  Thus  is 
the  light  hid  under  a  bushel — thus  is  the  "noble 
[180] 


THE    SILVER   LINING 

rage"  of  men  and  women  denied  any  reason- 
able means  of  expression. 

On  every  side  opportunities  are  granted  to 
the  few,  and  denied  to  the  many.  Poverty, 
mahiutrition,  premature  employment  and  bad 
housing  complete  the  destructive  work  which 
the  school  has  begun,  and  play  havoc  with 
youthful  potentiality. 

Even  more  appalling  in  its  magnitude  is 
the  waste  of  potential  womanhood.  Women 
are  denied  opportunities  by  man-made  custom 
and  tradition.  Read  history,  and  you  will  find 
that  it  is  the  record  of  the  doings  of  men. 
Read  biography.  The  father  of  a  great  man 
is  minutely  discussed,  but  it  takes  persistent 
effort  to  secure  from  a  biographer  the  admis- 
sion that  the  average  great  man  even  had  a 
mother.  Girls  are  taught  from  their  earliest 
youth  that  the  place  of  women  is  the  home,  and 
the  functions  of  women  are  matrimony  and 
maternity.  The  achievements  of  art  and  in- 
dustry and  science  are  closed  to  them,  for  they 
must  be  content  to  minister  to  the  whimsical 
caprices  of  the  masters  of  creation,  to  rock  the 
cradles,  wash  the  dishes,  scrub  the  floors.  John 
Burns,  of  England,  recently  made  a  com- 
[1811 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

mencement  address  in  which  he  said  to  the 
boys:  "I  want  you  to  be  happy  craftsmen 
because  you  are  trained  to  be  healthy  men." 
And  then,  turning  to  the  girls,  he  said;  "To 
keep  house,  cook,  nurse  and  delight  in  making 
others  happy  is  your  mission,  duty  and  liveli- 
hood." The  boys  are  to  be  happy;  the  girls 
are  to  assist  them  in  this  pleasant  task.  Men 
are  created  to  do  the  big  things  of  life,  to  ex- 
pand and  enjoy,  while  women  are  expected  to 
drudge  patiently  for  happy  masculinity.  I 
recently  heard  a  well-satisfied  product  of  mas- 
culine tradition  summarize  conditions  by  ex- 
claiming: "Man  is  the  center  of  the  home; 
woman  the  atmosphere." 

The  more  recent  scientific  investigations 
would  seem  to  throw  considerable  discredit  on 
this  statement.  Indeed,  there  are  scientists 
who  boldly  affirm  that  woman  is,  in  many  re- 
spects, distinctly  more  capable  than  man. 
Leaving  aside,  as  futile,  the  manifold  discus- 
sions of  the  relative  superiority  or  inferiority 
of  men  and  women,  one  thing  is  obvious — 
women  have  a  certain  quota  of  capacity,  which, 
if  afforded  opportunity,  will  show  itself  in 
achievement.  In  the  past,  women  have 
[182] 


THE    SILVER   LINING 

achieved,  yet  not  so  signally  as  men.  Queen 
Victoria,  Rosa  Bonheur,  Mrs.  Siddons  and 
Mrs.  Browning  were  women  who  acquired  in- 
ternational fame  for  the  part  which  they 
plaj^ed  in  progress. 

The  vast  majority  of  women,  however,  have 
had  little  or  no  part  in  making  the  world's 
history,  because  they  have  been  consistently 
denied  any  opportunity  for  the  display  of  their 
capacity. 

Michael  Angelo,  Wagner,  or  Lincoln,  on  an 
island  in  the  South  Pacific,  would  have  left 
little  impress  on  the  history  of  civilization. 
Likewise  woman,  confined  by  rigorous  custom 
and  time  honored  tradition  to  the  home,  has 
been  denied  the  opportunity  of  development. 
"The  genial  current  of  her  soul"  must  content 
itself  with  a  bread  pan  and  a  broom.  Man's 
place  was  among  the  big  things  of  life — 
woman's  among  the  little.  Without  opportu- 
nity, both  men  and  women  must  fail  to  achieve 
— such  a  failure  does  not  indicate  lack  of  ca- 
pacity, it  is  merely  the  logical  outcome  of  tlie 
failure  to  afford  opportunit}\ 

Women  are  capable.  Women  can  achieve, 
and  they  will  demonstrate  their  capacity  by 
[  183  ] 


SOCIAL   RELIGION 

their   achievement   when   opportunity   is   af- 
forded. 

The  raw  material  of  society — its  children — 
and  the  fountain  of  social  life — its  women — 
are  thus  neglected.  They  are  worthy,  yet  they 
have  been  forced  to  content  themselves  with 
the  husks  of  social  opportunity.  Underpay, 
overwork,  child  labor,  onerous  social  tradi- 
tions— all  of  these  things  have  served  to  re- 
press genius,  and  to  deny  capacity  its  legiti- 
mate outlet.  All  of  these  things  demand  the 
efficient  service  of  the  Good  Samaritan,  and 
all  will  yield  to  his  gentle  touch,  if  he  be 
organized  and  supported  by  public  sentiment. 


[184] 


CHAPTER   XII 
SOCIAL   RELIGION    IN   THEORY 

The  fields  are  white  already  to  harvest.  The 
opportunity  for  work  is  limitless.  You  need 
not  journey  to  "Greenland's  icy  mountains" 
nor  to  "India's  coral  strand"  in  order  to  find 
an  outlet  for  surplus  energy.  You  are  your 
brother's  keeper,  and  the  underpaid  American 
workman  is  as  much  your  brother  as  is  the 
I'apuan  aborigine  or  the  negroid  dwarf  of 
the  African  jungle.  Who  is  my  neighbor? 
Any  one  needing  help.  How  can  we  best  serve 
those  needing  help?  Let  us  proceed  for  en- 
lightenment to  the  story  of  the  Good  Samari- 
tan. 

A  man  went  down  from  Jerusalem  to 
Jericho  and  fell  among  thieves.  Who  were 
those  thieves?  Was  their  headquarters  in  the 
Temple  at  Jerusalem?  Did  tlie  leaders  among 
the  scribes  and  Pharisees  hold  stock?  Were 
they  protected  from  molestation  by  the  pay- 

r  185 1 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

ment  of  a  fat  fee  to  the  Roman  governor? 
How  long  had  they  operated?  Was  this  their 
only  victim?  Why  were  they  thieves?  Did 
they  have  opportunity  to  secure  honest  em- 
ployment or  was  this  the  slack  season  in  the 
industrial  world?  Had  their  mothers  worked 
out  when  they  were  babies  and  left  them  to 
grow  up  in  the  streets?  Was  the  school  sys- 
tem repulsive  to  them?  Were  they  jailed  with 
older  criminals  for  some  trifling  offense  and 
given  opportunity  to  take  a  full  course  in  high- 
way robbery  from  practical  experts? 

The  Priest  and  the  Levite  passed  by  on  the 
other  side.  They  said,  it  is  a  splendid  day — 
how  glorious  to  be  alive  in  such  weather! 
They  said,  the  next  meeting  of  the  Sanhedrin 
will  be  very  important — several  vital  matters 
are  to  come  before  the  body.  They  said,  Herod 
grows  most  arrogant — his  court  is  voluptu- 
ous— his  sneers  and  jibes  unbearable.  They 
said,  as  an  aside.  There  lies  a  fellow  who  has 
drunk  too  much.  He  will  soon  get  over  it: 
let  him  sleep  it  off. 

Then  the  Good  Samaritan  appeared.  He 
came  from  another  city.  He  bound  up  the 
wounds  of  the  victim,  put  him  on  his  own  beast 
[186] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION    IX    THEORY 

and  took  care  of  him.  But,  as  far  as  we  know, 
he  did  not  enter  information  against  the 
thieves.  Neither  did  he  organize  any  police 
system  to  patrol  the  road,  nor  did  he  propose 
a  scheme  for  lighting  the  highway,  thus  mak- 
ing it  safer.  In  short,  while  the  Good  Samar- 
itan rescued  one  victim  he  took  no  measures 
to  insure  safety  to  future  travelers,  so  that 
the  next  time  he  went  over  the  road  he  doubt- 
less found  another  victim  in  the  same  place,  in 
the  same  condition.  It  is  not  enough  to  bind 
up  the  wounds  of  one  victim,  for  while  you 
are  caring  for  him  two  others  may  be  receiv- 
ing like  injuries.  The  system  of  thievery  and 
the  system  which  produced  the  thieves  must 
both  be  broken  up. 

On  the  following  day  the  Samaritan  took 
out  two  pence  and  gave  them  to  the  landlord. 
Where  did  he  get  the  two  pence?  Was  he  a 
stockholder  in  a  thieving  com^iany  which  was 
at  that  moment  operating  on  the  roads  of 
Samaria,  or  did  that  money  rei^resent  the  ex- 
ploitation of  a  hundred  slaves  toiling  endlessly 
for  an  exacting  master?  Was  he  on  the  way 
to  collect  rents  from  his  unsanitary  tenements 
in  Jericho,  or  was  this  philanthropist  deriv- 
[187] 


SOCIAL   RELIGION 

ing  his  income  from  man-destroying  in- 
dustries? 

Finally  was  the  road  from  Jericho  to  Je- 
rusalem any  safer  after  the  Good  Samaritan 
had  departed?  If  it  was,  then  his  money  was 
well  spent ;  but  if,  however,  another  victim  lay 
at  the  same  place  the  next  day  and  the  next 
and  the  next,  then  his  time  and  effort  were 
little  better  than  wasted,  for  he  struck  at  the 
effect  and  not  at  the  cause.  As  Dr.  Patten  has 
so  ably  pointed  out  in  his  "New  Basis  of  Civ- 
ilization," it  is  wiser  and  better  to  light  and 
police  a  road  than  to  bind  up  wounds,  for, 
while  binding  up  wounds  gives  temporary 
relief  to  one  suiFerer,  a  road  well  lighted 
and  policed  insures  safety  to  all  future  trav- 
elers. 

JNIodern  social  conditions  furnish  a  striking 
confirmation  of  the  theory  that  history  repeats 
itself.  We  still  have  roads,  travelers,  thieves, 
priests,  Levites,  Good  Samaritans,  and  these 
various  groups  still  intermingle.  Let  me  see 
if  I  can  give  you  a  tiTie  story  of  child  life  in 
the  form  of  a  modern  parable. 

A  certain  child  in  a  great  city  began  his 
journey  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave.  As  a 
[188] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION    IN    THEORY 

baby  he  was  fed  on  preserved  milk  and  as  a 
child  he  had  for  breakfast  bread  and  tea  with- 
out milk  and  for  dinner  boiled  cabbage  and 
for  supper  bread  and  tea  without  milk,  and 
because  of  this  bad  diet  he  grew  up  in  life  low- 
browed and  stunted.  One  day,  while  playing 
in  the  noisome  alley  that  bordered  the  tene- 
ment house  which  he  called  home,  he  fell 
among  a  gang  of  thieves,  who  welcomed  him 
heartily  and  told  him  all  that  they  knew,  so 
that  he  became  an  expert  at  robbing  gum  slot 
machines  and  slot  gas  meters. 

And  by  chance  a  certain  minister  passed  by 
that  way,  who  saw  neither  the  noisome  alley 
nor  the  filthy  tenement,  nor  the  gang  of  young 
thieves,  for  his  eyes  were  fixed  on  heaven  and 
his  thoughts  were  of  soul  salvation.  Besides 
the  owner  of  these  tenements  was  among  the 
pillars  of  his  great  church  and  gave  five  thou- 
sand dollars  a  year  to  foreign  missions.  And 
he  passed  by  on  the  other  side. 

Likewise  a  lawyer  came  and  looked  on  the 
boy  as  he  stole  lead  pipe  and  said  to  him,  "You 
little  devil,  you  have  sinned  against  property. 
You  will  be  arrested."  But  it  never  occurred 
to  the  lawyer  that  the  owner  of  the  boy's  tene- 
[189] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

meiit  home  might  have  sinned  against  the  child. 
And  he  passed  by  on  the  other  side. 

And  a  certain  big-hearted  philanthropist,  as 
he  journeyed  in  his  automobile  from  the  ocean 
liner  to  his  country  home,  came  where  the  boy 
was  and  had  compassion  on  him  and  gave  lib- 
erally to  the  children's  aid  society. 

But  by  chance  a  social  worker  came  by  as 
the  boy  was  brought  into  court  for  the  twelfth 
time  and  when  the  lawyer,  who  was  agent  for 
the  landlord,  had  called  him  a  little  devil  and 
the  Judge  was  about  to  pronounce  sentence  the 
social  worker  said,  "Nay,  let  us  look  into  the 
conditions  surrounding  this  boy's  family." 
So  he  investigated  the  conditions  and  found 
that  the  boy's  family  lived  in  two  small  rooms 
in  a  tenement  house  which  was  the  property 
of  a  great  landlord.  He  found  that  the  boy's 
mother  was  unable  to  read  and  write  her  own 
name,  and  was  ignorant  of  every  art  and 
craft  of  home  making  and  child  rearing.  He 
found  that  the  boy's  father  left  home  each 
morning  at  five  o'clock,  and,  in  return  for  ten 
dollars  a  week,  drove  a  team  for  a  prosperous 
employer.  He  found  that  the  boy  had  two 
older  sisters,  both  of  whom  were  professional 
[190] 


SOCIAL   RELIGION    IN    THEORY 

prostitutes,  then  in  the  House  of  Refuge,  and 
two  younger  brothers,  both  of  whom  were 
mentally  defective  and  in  sj)ecial  schools,  and, 
furthermore,  that  the  pillar  of  the  great  church 
and  the  kind-hearted  philanthropist  and  the 
owner  of  the  squalid  tenement  and  the  em- 
ployer of  the  boy's  father  were  one  and  the 
same  person.  For  this  well-meaning  man  was 
scuttling  the  ship  of  state  with  one  hand,  while 
he  attempted  to  caulk  up  the  seams  with  the 
other.  Then  the  social  worker  said  to  the 
Judge — behold,  your  Honor,  this  boy  has  had 
no  legitimate  opportunities.  Shall  we  smite 
him  or  deal  rigorously  with  the  pillar-philan- 
thropist-landlord-employer? But  the  Judge 
answered,  "I^ay  not  the  blame  on  this  good 
Christian  man.  He  too  is  victim  of  the  social 
system  of  wliich  he  is  a  part.  But  this  child 
is  not  to  blame  that  he  has  been  committed  to 
jail  twelve  times  at  the  age  of  fifteen.  The 
blame  rather  rests  upon  a  society  which  per- 
mits  his  father  to  be  underpaid  and  over- 
worked, and  upon  a  peojile  that  allow  a  woman 
to  grow  up  ignorant  of  reading  and  writing 
and  the  knowledge  of  ])earing  and  rearing 
children." 

[  191  1 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

It  is  not  enough  that  we  bind  up  the  wounds. 
It  is  not  enough  that  we  consider  the  effects. 
The  thieves  must  be  caught.  The  causes  must 
be  studied;  the  matter  must  be  traced  to  its 
source  and  there  prevented. 

Service  to  one's  neighbor,  therefore,  includes 
binding  of  his  wounds,  ascertaining  the  cause 
of  his  wounding,  removing  the  cause,  and  thus 
preventing  a  recurrence  of  the  accident.  It  is 
of  no  httle  import  to  ascertain  the  source  of 
the  money  which  takes  care  of  the  man  at  the 
hospital  or  the  charity  society.  What  is  the 
origin  of  your  gift?  Does  your  vile  tenement 
make  necessary  the  children's  aid  society  to 
which  you  are  a  contributor?  Do  men  go 
each  hour  of  the  day  from  your  factory  to 
the  hospital  which  you  help  to  support?  So- 
ciety cannot  lift  itself  by  its  boot-straps. 
Provide  playgrounds  and  abolish  the  chil- 
dren's aid;  prevent  accidents  and  abandon 
hospitals. 

Here  are  presented  unbounded  fields  for  the 
w  ork  of  you  Good  Samaritans :  in  these  social 
conditions  lies  the  opportunity  for  applying  a 
social  religion.  Of  what  shall  that  religion 
consist?  How  may  its  purpose  be  defined? 
[  192  ] 


SOCIAL   RELIGION    IN    THEORY 

For  convenience  of  statement,  a  social  re- 
ligion may  be  analj^zed  into  tliree  parts — 

I.     The  theory. 
11.     The  machinery. 
III.     The  application. 

Each  part  logically  follows  the  part  preceding 
it — without  a  theory,  without  a  goal,  no  ma- 
chinery can  be  erected;  without  an  ideal  and 
a  system,  the  religion  can  never  be  applied. 

The  theory  of  religion  is  sometimes  called 
theology.  The  Scribes  and  Pharisees  under- 
stood their  theology  thoroughly,  and  if  you 
will  read  the  twenty-third  chapter  of  INIatthew 
you  will  learn  what  Jesus  thought  of  it.  They 
had  cleaned  the  outside  of  the  cup  and  the  plat- 
ter; they  were  whited  sepulchres;  they  made 
long  praj^ers,  and  then  cheated  widows;  they 
made  liberal  sacrifices,  but  neglected  justice, 
mercy,  and  faith;  tliey  had  the  letter  of  the 
law,  but  not  its  spirit.  "Ye  serpents,"  He 
says  to  them,  "ye  generation  of  vipers,  how 
can  ye  escape  the  damnation  of  hell?" 

This  condemnation  of  tlie  Scribes  and  Phari- 
sees is  not,  however,  a  condemnation  of  all 
[193] 


SOCIAL   RELIGION 

theology.  Jesus  laid  down  his  doctrine  in  un- 
mistakable terms.  "Love  thy  God,"  said  He, 
"and  thy  neighbor  as  thyself."  That  is  the 
extent  of  Jesus'  religious  theory.  Formulated, 
His  doctrine  might  appear  thus: 

I.     The  Theory  of  Social  Religion 

1.  Belief  in  God. 

2.  Belief  in  Men. 

How  divinely  simple ;  how  wonderfully  grand ! 
We  are  to  found  our  lives  on  God — good — a 
spirit  that  must  be  worshipped  in  spirit  and  in 
truth.  We  are  to  believe  in  God — that  is,  we 
are  to  believe  in  Good,  Truth,  Beauty — in  all 
of  the  great  beneficent  forces  of  the  universe. 
This,  however,  is  not  enough.  God  is  a 
spirit,  and  man,  made  in  His  image  and  hke- 
ness,  is  a  spirit,  too.  Hence,  we  are  enjoined 
to  love  our  neighbor  as  ourselves.  We  are  to 
believe  in  man.  Indeed,  our  belief  in  God  is 
demonstrable  only  through  our  belief  in  man, 
for,  if  a  man  cannot  love  his  brother,  whom  he 
has  seen,  how  can  he  love  God,  whom  he  has 
not  seen?  Our  faith,  in  short,  will  be  tested 
by  our  works. 

[194] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION    IN    THEORY 

The  theory  of  our  faith  must  be  judged  by 
the  practice  of  our  works.  It  is  not  enough 
that  we  beheve:  we  must  do.  How  shall  we 
do?  How  express  this  theory  of  religion  in 
the  practical  affairs  of  life?  Let  me  suggest 
that  the  things  needed  for  putting  Social  Re- 
ligion into  practice  are — 

1.  Sympathy. 

2.  Inspiration. 

3.  Efficiency. 

Those  men  who  aim  to  make  their  religion 
practicable,  applicable  to  their  every-day  lives, 
must  possess  these  three  attributes :  Sympathy'', 
Inspiration,  Efficiency.  It  is  idle  to  talk  of  the 
function  of  the  church  as  if  the  church  was 
an  individual  that,  like  Lazarus,  would  arise 
and  walk.  The  church  is  an  institution,  the 
work  of  which  must  necessarily  be  done  by 
men,  hence  it  is  the  attributes  of  the  men  that 
reallj''  count  in  the  determination  of  church 
activity.  You  cannot  touch  the  hem  of  your 
neighbor's  soul  without  sympathy — nay,  with- 
out that  quality,  you  cannot  step  across  the 
threshold  of  his  being.  You  must  fill  his  life 
I  105  1 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

and  understand  his  view,  if  you  are  to  be  to 
him  a  neighbor  in  the  truer  sense. 

To  do  this,  to  live  as  a  social  being  in  a 
social  group;  to  practice  a  social  religion;  to 
keep  your  soul  open  for  belief  in  men,  there 
must  be  that  inspiration — that  divine  fire 
which  animates  every  individual  man  and  wom- 
an who  is  born  into  the  world. 

You  do — that  is  something.  What  do  you 
do?  That  depends  entirely  upon  your  belief 
and  your  inspiration.  How  do  you  do  it? 
The  answer  to  that  question  determines  your 
efficiency.  To  do  is  well;  to  do  right  is  bet- 
ter ;  but  to  do  right  in  the  best  possible  manner 
is  best  of  all.  No  machinery  can  be  effective 
unless  to  its  inspiration  and  sympathy  is  joined 
efficiency. 

When  the  theory  has  been  accepted  and  the 
machinery  evolved,  there  yet  remains  the  ap- 
plication of  our  social  religion.  We  believe  in 
God  and  in  man;  we  sympathize,  longing  to 
see  our  fellows  live  rounded,  noble  lives;  we 
are  inspired  to  help  them ;  and  we  are  efficient. 
Like  the  rich  young  man,  we  have  kept  all  of 
the  commandments.  What  lack  we  yet?  We 
lack  one  thing — the  power  to  apply  our  re- 
[196  1 


SOCIAL   RELIGION    IN    THEORY 

ligion.  We  have  religion — now  we  must  do 
something  with  it. 

The  practice  of  Social  Religion  involves: 

1.  Clean  Living. 

2.  Social  Service. 

3.  Social  Justice. 

There  are,  therefore,  two  elements — an  indi- 
vidual and  a  social — in  the  practice  of  Social 
Religion.  The  individual  has  a  machine  -wath 
which  he  must  do  his  work.  That  machine — 
his  body  and  soul — must  be  kept  in  repair, 
cleaned,  exercised,  developed.  "He  that  rul- 
eth  his  spirit  is  always  greater  than  he  that 
taketh  a  city."  The  practice  of  Social  Re- 
ligion, like  charity,  begins  at  home,  in  the  in- 
dividual life. 

When  the  individual  life  is  clean,  or,  indeed, 
while  it  is  being  cleansed,  it  may,  through  So- 
cial Service,  assist  in  erecting  Social  Justice. 
In  the  home,  the  street,  the  school,  the  factory, 
men  may  serve  their  neighbors — binding  up 
their  wounds,  povu'ing  in  oil  and  wine,  caring 
for  them,  and  calling  solicitously  again  to  see 
that  they  have  fully  recovered,  and  are  able  to 
'[107] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

discharge  their  debts.  Such  was  the  service  of 
the  Good  Samaritan.  Such  is  the  service  of 
any  one  who  cheerfully  assists  in  making 
lighter  the  burden  of  his  fellow. 

This,  however,  is  not  the  whole  duty  of 
man.  "It  is  good  that  thou  givest  bread  to  the 
hungry,  but  better  were  it  that  none  hungered, 
and  that  thou  hadst  none  to  give."  It  is  well 
to  be  neighborly;  it  is  better  to  be  just.  Not 
as  an  individual,  but  as  a  member  of  a  pro- 
gressive society,  the  believer  in  Social  Religion 
makes  effective  his  belief  by  an  insistence  on 
Social  Justice. 

Without  Opportunity,  men  and  women  are 
born  and  live  and  die  in  squalor.  Universal- 
ize and  revolutionize  education  until  it  pre- 
pares children  for  life;  then  universalize  op- 
portunity until  every  adult  has  a  chance  to 
show  what  powers  lie  in  him.  So  you  shall 
establish  justice — so  complete  the  practice  of 
your  Social  Religion. 

I  have  told  you  of  social  wrong — of  misery, 
vice,  poverty.  Would  you  assist  those  miser- 
able ones?  That  is  well.  Would  you  prevent 
misery  in  the  future?  That  is  better.  Would 
you  help  misery  in  the  present,  at  the  same 
[  108  ] 


SOCIAL   RELIGION    IN    THEORY 

time  striving  earnestlj^  to  prevent  like  miserj'' 
in  the  future?  That,  again,  is  best  of  all, 
for  you  relieve  the  distress,  while  at  the  same 
time  striking  at  its  cause.  You  are  binding  up 
wounds,  but  that  does  not  prevent  you  from 
insisting  that  the  road  to  Jericho  be  lighted 
and  policed. 


[199] 


CHAPTER  XIII 
SOCIAL  RELIGION  IN  PRACTICE 

I  have  spoken  to  you  in  detail  about  some 
of  the  living  and  working  conditions  which 
are  playing  havoc  wdth  American  manliood 
and  womanhood.  If  religion  is  a  vitalizing 
social  force  it  must  face  and  master  the  situa- 
tion. A  social  religion,  through  the  theory 
just  outlined,  would  prove  such  a  force.  Let 
me  make  clearer  my  idea  of  the  application  of 
Social  Religion  in  this  one  field  by  explaining 
how  you  can  secure  Social  Justice. 

Low  standards  of  living  produce  anemic 
children,  who  grow  up  to  be  haggard  men. 
These  men  marry  and  strive  to  support  a  fam- 
ily on  the  wages  of  unskilled  labor.  Such 
wages,  as  I  have  tried  to  show,  are  entirely 
insufficient  to  provide  even  the  necessities  of 
life.  The  low  income  of  the  father,  with  its 
resulting  low  standard  of  life,  reflects  itself 
in  the  low  earning  power  of  the  child.  He, 
[200] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION    IN    PKACTICE 

too,  is  destined  to  become  the  head  of  an  un- 
skilled laborer's  family,  endeavoring  to  win  a 
family  livelihood  against  frightful  odds.  Low 
incomes  produce  a  living  hell,  and  perpetuate 
it  from  one  generation  to  the  next. 

Why,  then,  are  low  incomes  paid?  Why  is 
a  system  of  distribution  tolerated  which  fails 
to  give  to  every  family  a  living  wage?  You 
know  why.  It  is  because  we  do  not  really 
care  to  applj^  the  Christian  doctrine  of  broth- 
erhood to  the  affairs  of  daily  life. 

It  is  entirely  possible  to  enforce  a  living 
wage  for  all  workers.  We  might  follow  the 
example  of  New  Zealand  and  pass  a  minimum 
wage  law,  which  prescribes  the  lowest  wage 
that  may  be  paid  in  a  given  industry.  In  New 
Zealand  the  law  has  been  in  operation  for 
twenty  years,  and  has  succeeded  admirably  in 
raising  the  wages  in  the  worst  of  the  "sweated" 
industries.  So  salutary  has  been  the  effect 
of  this  enactment  in  raising  industrial  stand- 
ards, that  employers  as  well  as  employes  are 
continually  invoking  it  in  order  to  suppress 
unscrupulous  competitors. 

So  much  the  state  may  do  to  guarantee  a 
normal  standard  of  wages.  On  the  other  hand, 
[  201  ] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

it  is  possible  to  organize  the  workers  into  trade 
unions,  as  they  have  done  in  Australia,  where, 
under  the  authority  of  law,  a  union  can  com- 
pel an  employer  to  appear  before  a  Board  of 
Arbitration  and  settle  any  differences  which 
may  have  arisen. 

The  American  trade  union  is  the  one  organ- 
ization which  stands  between  the  American 
worker  and  a  wage  so  low  as  to  involve  semi- 
starvation.  Whatever  its  unwisdom,  whatever 
its  biased  judgments  and  anti-social  actions, 
the  union  exists  as  the  only  effective  means  of 
protest  which  the  worker  has  at  his  command. 
Do  you  decry  organizations  of  workmen?  Do 
you  disapprove  of  unions?  Ensure  decent 
working  conditions  and  a  living  w^age — the 
cause  for  union  activity  will  have  been  elimi- 
nated, and  unions  will  cease  to  commit  those 
errors  which  are  an  element  in  the  conduct  of 
any  organization  formed  by  fallible  human  be- 
ings. 

There  may  have  been  a  time,  in  the  early 
history  of  the  United  States,  when  the  thin 
soil  and  the  sickly  industries  failed  to  provide 
a  living  for  all.  If  such  a  time  ever  existed, 
it  passed  away  with  the  opening  of  the  West 
[202] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION    IN    PRACTICE 

and  the  expansion  of  modern  industry.  We 
produce  enough  for  all,  and  it  is  time,  if  we 
are  to  justify  our  claim  to  enlightenment  and 
Christianity,  that  we  guarantee  to  all  a  living 
share  of  our  industrial  products. 

The  motherless  girl  fights  her  losing  fight 
against  low  incomes,  social  prejudice,  and 
overwhelming  traditions.  She  is  "Only  a 
woman."  Her  place  is  in  the  home.  If  she 
must  needs  come  into  industrial  fields,  she  must 
take  what  she  finds  there.  Yet,  her  father  is 
earning  low  wages,  her  little  hrothers  and  sis- 
ters wear  shoes  in  winter  and  eat  all  the  year 
round.  Every  week  the  landlord  comes.  This 
girl  must  earn.  The  family  depends  on  her. 
So  she  asks  for  work  at  your  store. 

"Yes,"  you  agree,  "I  will  take  you  on,  but 
you  must  start  at  four-fifty  a  week.  It  is  un- 
fortunate if  that  income  will  not  support  j^ou, 
but  I  am  an  employer  with  a  living  to  make, 
and  I  can't  interest  myself  in  such  matters. 
You're  living  at  home?  Then  you  haven't  a 
gentleman  friend  who  could  help  you  out  by 
paying  the  rent." 

What  an  application  of  Christian  Doctrine! 
What  a  parable  of  the  Good  Samaritan ! 
I  203  1 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

Whether  you  are  an  employer  or  an  em- 
ploye, you  owe  a  duty  to  your  fellows,  whether 
they  be  man  or  woman.  This  motherless  girl 
must  be  protected,  and  the  state  must  protect 
her. 

Men  form  unions  and  fight;  women  accept 
the  conditions  that  are  imposed  upon  them. 
The  Woman's  Trade  Union  League  is  feeble 
and  its  branches  are  few  and  ineffective. 
Through  legislative  action  alone  can  adequate 
protection  be  afforded  to  the  working  girl. 

What  shall  be  the  nature  of  this  protection? 
To  be  effective,  it  must  regulate — 

1.  Wages. 

2.  Hours. 

3.  Working  conditions. 

Is  a  minimum  wage  law  imperative  in  the 
case  of  men?  It  is  even  more  necessary  for 
women,  who,  particularly  in  the  unskilled 
trades,  are  defenceless  against  the  merciless 
competition  of  their  fellows.  Just  as  a  mini- 
mum wage  should  be  fixed  for  men,  so  it 
should  be  fixed  for  women — fixed  at  a  figure 
that  will  enable  them  to  buy  the  necessities  and 
at  least  a  portion  of  the  comforts  of  life. 
[204] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION    IN    PRACTICE 

As  the  speed  of  industry  increases,  requiring 
a  girl  to  make  twenty  motions  each  minute 
instead  of  the  former  ten,  hours  must  be  pro- 
portionately reduced  to  avoid  disastrous  fa- 
tigue. There  are  two  reasonable  tests  which 
may  determine  the  length  of  the  day's  work: 

1.  What   length   of   day   will   produce 

enough  goods  to  support  the  com- 
munity. 

2.  What  length  of  day,  in  this  particu- 

lar industry,  will  not  jeopardize  the 
health  of  the  worker. 

Eight  hours  is  a  long  day  in  most  modern  in- 
dustries— in  many  six  would  be  adequate. 

Working  conditions  must  be  adjusted  in 
other  ways  to  assure  the  welfare  of  the  worker. 
Air  and  sunlight  are  essential  to  health  and 
efficiency.  It  may  even  prove,  in  the  long  run, 
that  investments  in  air  and  sunlight  pay  bet- 
ter than  many  others. 

"You  must  whitewash  your  factory,"  said 
the  Factory  Inspector  to  the  owner  of  a  dingy 
building. 

"Whitewash  this  factory,"  stormed  the  own- 
[205] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

er.  "Why,  I  can't  afford  it,  it  will  cost  me 
$1,500!" 

"You  will  obey  my  order,  or  I'll  swear  out 
a  warrant,"  said  the  Inspector. 

The  building  was  whitewashed.  On  his  next 
visit,  six  months  later,  the  owner  greeted  the 
inspector  cordially. 

"You  remember  the  row  we  had  about  the 
whitewash?" 

"Yes,  indeed." 

"Well,  sir,  that  $1,500  was  the  best  money 
I  ever  laid  out.  The  building  hadn't  been 
touched  for  ten  years,  and  the  whitewash 
makes  it  look  like  new.  It  is  wonderfully 
cheerful  and  bright — and  the  girls  have  done 
so  much  better  work  that  I  believe  I  have  al- 
ready got  my  money  back." 

The  whitewash  paid.  So  does  every  im- 
provement which  makes  of  the  factory  a  more 
livable  place. 

Where  women  work  the  question  of  seats  is 
a  vitally  important  one.  If  one  of  your 
daughters,  aged  fifteen,  was  attending  a  school 
where  she  was  forced,  day  after  day,  to  stand 
up  on  a  hard  floor  for  five  hours  would  you 
protest?  What  do  you  think  of  girls — not 
[206] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION    IX    PRACTICE 

your  daughters,  but  factory  girls — standing 
before  a  machine  for  ten  hours  a  day.  Such 
a  life  is  dangerous  for  a  growing  boy,  but 
fatal  to  a  growing  girl.  Hideous,  is  it  not? 
Yet  some  of  tlie  leading  industrial  states  per- 
mit growing  girls  to  stand  for  ten  hours  a  day. 

Though  infrequent  in  number,  factory  dis- 
asters are  glaring  in  their  consequences.  How 
long,  think  you,  will  it  be  before  we  learn  that 
a  fire  in  a  tall  building  without  j^roper  fire 
escapes  is  fatal  to  the  workers?  Every  year 
women  are  burned  in  tall  factory  buildings 
which  are  unprovided  with  a  reasonable  means 
of  exit.  Every  year  this  preventable  human 
sacrifice  is  made  because  of  inadequate  factory 
legislation. 

The  motherless  girl  needs  our  protection, 
and  we,  through  minimum  wage  laws  and 
through  factory  legislation,  which  prescribes 
the  hours  and  conditions  of  work,  can  protect 
her.  As  employers  we  can  improve  the  con- 
dition of  these  neighbors;  as  citizens  we  can 
insist  that  adequate  legislation  be  passed  and 
enforced. 

Men  must  do  these  things,  and  they  must 
go  one  step  further;  they  must  change,  by  a 
[207"] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

fundamental  system  of  education  regarding 
biologic  and  social  facts,  the  social  traditions 
themselves  which  are  founded  on  the  barbaric 
idea  of  the  inferiority  of  women  to  men. 
Women  must,  like  all  other  adult  citizens,  be 
given  the  rights  which  pertain  to  citizenship. 
They,  too,  must  vote  and  otherwise  participate 
in  the  deliberation  of  a  society  which  is  based 
upon  discussion  rather  than  upon  despotism. 
Thus,  armed  with  new  power  through  the  as- 
sumption of  civic  rights,  women  will,  in  time, 
assert  their  independence  of  masculine  domi- 
nance and  assume  their  true  position  as  one 
organic  factor  in  modern  society. 

You  know  that  little,  undeveloped  children 
should  not  work.  Thus  far  we  have  reached 
a  point  where  the  minimum  age  for  working 
children  is  set  at  fourteen,  but  thinking  men 
and  women  are  looking  forward  to  the  time 
when  the  school  system  will  be  so  excellent 
that  childi'en  will  not  care  to  leave  school  and 
go  to  work;  when  the  parents  will  be  guaran- 
teed a  minimum  living  that  will  relieve  them 
of  the  necessity  of  sending  their  children  into 
the  factories;  when  the  employers  themselves 
will  see  that  children  under  sixteen  do  not  pay; 
[208] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION   IN   PRACTICE 

and  when  society  shall  insist  that  no  under- 
grown  child  of  fourteen  shall  be  subjected  to 
the  soul-destroying  monotony  of  factory  life. 

No  immature  child,  no  matter  what  the  age, 
should  be  allowed  to  work.  Maturity  and  not 
age  is,  therefore,  the  ideal  test.  Since  no  sure 
test  of  maturity  can  be  agreed  upon,  age  is 
resorted  to  as  the  only  available  means  of  de- 
termining capacity  to  work.  Let  the  law  fix 
the  age.  Let  it  establish  the  conditions  under 
which  children  shall  work,  and  then  provide 
adequate  machinery  for  enforcing  its  provi- 
sions. 

Every  civilized  country  of  the  world  and 
some  of  the  progressive  states  have  enacted 
child  labor  legislation,  models  of  which  may 
be  had  from  the  National  Child  Labor  Com- 
mittee in  New  York  City.  The  passage  of 
child  labor  legislation  is  a  social  responsibil- 
ity, and  its  enforcement  is  a  social  duty.  No 
state  can  afford  to  exist,  nor  can  it  long  per- 
sist if  its  future  rests  upon  unprotected  child- 
hood. 

Is  your  state  a  leader  in  this  respect?  If  it 
is  not,  it  is  high  time  that  you  took  some  radi- 
cal steps  toward  protecting  these  "little  ones." 
[209] 


SOCIAL   RELIGION 

European  cities,  and,  in  the  last  few  years, 
some  cities  in  the  United  States,  liave  earnestly- 
sought  to  eliminate  the  worst  features  of  the 
congestion  problem.  Factories  have  been  con- 
fined to  certain  districts.  The  height  and  ex- 
tent of  tenement  houses  have  been  restricted. 
A  ban  has  been  placed  upon  the  building  of 
dark  rooms.  Sanitation  has  been  insisted 
upon,  and,  in  these  and  a  score  of  other  direc- 
tions, efforts  have  been  made  to  overcome  con- 
gestion through  city  planning.  In  Europe 
these  efforts  have  been  crowned  with  phenome- 
nal success.  For  example,  in  Frankfort,  the 
introduction  of  city  planning  has  cut  the 
death  rate  in  half,  while  several  of  the  garden 
cities  which  have  been  organized  in  England, 
France,  and  Germany  have  death  rates  one- 
half  as  high  as  those  prevalent  in  American 
municipalities.  City  planning  will  eliminate 
the  worst  features  of  congestion,  just  as  wise 
housekeeping  will  do  away  with  many  unde- 
sirable factors  in  domestic  life. 

Nothing  is  more  simple  than  the  prevention 
of  overwork.  Australia  has  solved  the  prob- 
lem by  the  enactment  of  a  universal  eight-hour 
law.  Already  beginnings  have  been  made  in 
[210] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION    IN    PRACTICE 

several  of  the  states  through  legislation  re- 
stricting the  working  hours  of  women  and 
children.  It  remains  for  other  states  to  emu- 
late the  example  which  these  pioneers  have 
set. 

The  problem  of  unemployment  presents 
more  difficulties  than  any  thus  far  discussed. 
Free  employment  agencies  managed,  as  in 
Germany,  Belgium,  and  England,  by  the  gov- 
ernment will  do  much  to  relieve  the  worst 
features  of  unemployment;  the  regulation  of 
casual  and  seasonal  trades  will  have  its  effect, 
but  the  unemployment  incident  to  industrial 
depressions  can  only  be  offset  by  some  system 
of  government  work  which  shall  guarantee  to 
the  family  of  the  unemployed  at  least  a  min- 
imum of  subsistence  until  work  can  again  be 
secured. 

Industrial  accidents,  as  INIrs.  Florence 
Kelley  has  so  ably  pointed  out,  are  not  acci- 
dents at  all,  because  they  have  become  a  regu- 
lar part  of  industry.  They  are  casualties  oc- 
curring not  spasmodically,  but  at  j)redictable 
intervals.  While  all  industrial  accidents  can- 
not be  immediately  eliminated,  their  number 
can  be  greatly  reduced  by  providing  safety 
[2111 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

devices  and  efficient  factory  inspection. 
Where  prevention  of  accidents  seems  to  be 
impossible,  compensation  of  workingmen  for 
accidents  is  not  only  possible  but  practicable. 
The  German  system  of  workingmen's  insur- 
ance, as  well  as  the  British  system  of  working- 
men's  compensation,  have  both  proved  useful 
in  relieving  the  family  of  the  injured  or  killed 
workingman  from  the  most  serious  phases  of 
distress  to  which  they  are  still  subject  in  most 
of  the  states. 

All  of  these  things  together:  low  standards 
of  living,  the  subjection  of  women,  child  labor, 
congestion,  overwork,  unemployment,  and  ac- 
cidents, lead  to  a  premature  death,  involving 
stupendous  losses  which  can  be  prevented  only 
by  preventing  the  conditions  wliich  cause  pre- 
mature death. 

For  each  of  these  adverse  social  conditions — 
these  social  maladjustments — a  remedy  exists. 
In  no  case  is  the  field  an  untried  one,  for  the 
countries  of  Europe  and  the  states  of  Austra- 
lia have  taken  many  steps  in  advance  of  the 
United  States  in  their  attempts  to  remedy  the 
conditions  of  which  I  have  spoken.  But  we 
in  the  United  States  do  not  yet  know  these 
[212] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION    IN   PRACTICE 

things.  We  must  still  be  educated  up  to  their 
realization.  We  must  learn  that  high  stand- 
ards can  be  maintained  because  men  are  essen- 
tially normal  and  will  remain  so  unless  their 
environment  is  adverse. 

When  we  have  educated  people  to  a  realiza- 
tion of  these  facts,  when  we  have  inspired  them 
with  the  knowledge  that  social  conditions  are 
remediable  through  cooperative  social  action, 
then  we  can  advance  through  our  Social  Re- 
ligion toward  a  higher  type  society  which  shall 
tolerate  only  those  things  which  are  worthy 
and  perpetuate  only  the  noblest  and  best  that 
exists  in  men  and  women. 


[213] 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  SOCIAL  RESPONSIBILITY  OF 
THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

What  problem  is  presented  to  the  Christian 
Church  by  modern  economic  and  social  condi- 
tions? What  service  must  the  church  per- 
form? What  burden  of  responsibility  must 
it  assume  if  it  is  to  abide  by  the  teachings  of 
Jesus  ? 

Jesus^reached_g^.sQciaLreligion.  ^gejsaid : 
"j4QYe_Go(L-and_. serve  thy  neighbor."  De- 
spite the  wide  distribution  of  ability  and  ge- 
nius, opportunities  are  so  narrowed  in  America 
to-day  that  millions  are  condemned  to  a  living 
hell  of  underpay,  poverty,  vice,  and  misery. 
This  narrowing  of  opportunities  cannot  be 
ascribed  to  the  anger  of  a  jealous  God,  nor  to 
the  indiscretion  or  selfishness  of  a  past  genera- 
tion. Neither  omnipotent  anger  nor  heredi- 
tary defect  is  responsible  for  maladjustments. 
[214] 


SOCIAL    RESPONSIBILITY 

Thej^  are  the  work  of  men,  and  may  be  rem- 
edied by  their  creators. 

You  and  I  share  in  the  benefits  of  the  mal- 
adjustments which  exist  in  our  society.  We 
take  the  dividend  from  the  man-kilhng  steel 
works ;  we  accept  the  rent  check  from  a  squalid 
tenement ;  we  wear  silk  spun  by  an  overworked 
child;  we  use  white  phosphorus  matches  when 
work  with  white  phosphorus  means  death  to 
the  worker ;  we  burn  hard  coal  that  has  passed 
through  the  fingers  of  a  twelve-year  old 
breaker  boj'^;  we  enjoy  a  delicately  prepared 
box  of  delicious  candy  upon  which  there  is  no 
trace  of  the  hopeless  wretchedness  of  the  work- 
ers who  made  it. 

These  maladjustments  exist  in  our  society — 
we  share  the  benefits  and  we  are  socially  re- 
sponsible for  their  continuance.  The  old 
drama  is  reenacted.  The  Lord  said  unto  Cain: 
"Where  is  Abel,  thy  brother?"  And  he  said: 
"I  know  not,  am  I  my  brother's  keeper?" 
God  walks  to-daj^  in  the  midst  of  social  in- 
justice— vile  tenements;  low-browed,  stunted, 
haggard  men;  motherless  girls;  women  strug- 
gling to  support  their  families  on  bread  and 
tea  without  milk;  children  dragging  out  a 
[  215  ] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

weary  existence  In  the  mills.  God  sees  this 
squalor,  wretchedness,  and  misery  and  asks 
the  men  and  women  in  the  middle  and  upper 
classes:     "Where  is  thy  brother,  the  worker?'* 

What  shall  be  your  answer? 

"He  is  toiling  that  I  may  enjoy;  he  is  pro- 
ducing that  I  may  consume;  he  is  suffering 
from  congestion  and  insanitation  while  I  live 
in  a  fine  house,  own  an  automobile,  belong  to 
an  exclusive  club  and  attend  a  palatial  church." 
Or,  perhaps,  we  may  sympathize  with  Charles 
Rann  Kennedy's  Bishop  of  Lancashire,  who 
exclaims  in  a  tone  of  agonized  horror:  "Do 
you  mean  to  tell  me  that  I've  been  sitting 
down  to  breakfast  with  a  common  working- 
man?"  Or,  perhaps,  we  may  reply:  "Am  I 
my  brother's  keeper?"  In  any  case,  do  you 
remember  what  God  said  to  Cain? 

Is  your  church  acting  the  part  of  the  Good 
Samaritan  in  its  deahngs  with  the  modern  un- 
fortunate? Let  me  state  a  concrete  case.  The 
other  day  I  stood  in  a  New  York  court,  look- 
ing up  at  the  six-story  tenements  by  which  the 
court  was  surrounded.  On  the  fourth-story 
fire  escape  of  one  of  these  buildings  stood  a 
child  of  perhaps  three  years,  rosy-cheeked 
[216] 


SOCIAL   RESPONSIBILITY 

and  full  of  vitality.  It  held  one  of  the  bars 
of  the  fire  escape  in  each  hand  and  gnawed 
at  another  bar  with  its  milk  teeth  as  I  have 
seen  animals  gnaw  at  the  bars  of  their  cage. 
Here  was  a  typical  tenement-house  child  play- 
ing behind  the  bars  until  it  should  be  old 
enough  to  go  down  and  play  among  the  traf- 
fic of  the  street,  and  I  began  to  wonder  what 
would  happen  to  that  child  as  it  grew  older 
and  became  a  man.  I  thought  of  the  green 
fields,  trees,  flowers,  birds  and  the  freshness 
and  spontaneity  of  nature  which  the  children 
of  the  country  know  so  well,  and  then  I  turned 
to  this  spot  of  desolation  within  the  limits  of 
the  greatest  city  in  the  land,  where  were  one 
scrubby  tree,  ash  barrels,  filth,  refuse,  drying 
clothes,  fire  escapes,  brick  walls,  and  a  small 
patch  of  sky.  Can  any  good  come  out  of 
Nazareth?  Have  we  in  the  twentieth  century 
learned  to  gather  figs  of  thistles?  Here,  per- 
haps within  sight  of  the  church  in  which  you 
worship,  was  an  embryo  man  possessed  of 
every  possibility  of  strong  manhood,  yet 
doomed  through  the  lack  of  play  facilities,  and 
the  lack  of  normal  life,  to  grow  into  manhood 
dwarfed  in  soul,  if  not  in  body — misshapen  by 
[2171 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

contact  with  an  environment  in  which  there  was 
no  inspiration,  no  hope. 

As  he  grows  up  this  boy  may  Hterally  fall 
among  thieves,  and  become  one  of  them.  What 
then?  Shall  we  condemn  him  because  he  is 
bad?  He  never  knew  a  real  home,  nor  cul- 
tured surroundings.  Shall  we  condemn  his 
mother  for  her  ignorance?  Shall  we  condemn 
his  father  because  he  earned  only  ten  dollars 
a  week?  Shall  we  condemn  or  reform?  Is  it 
better  to  maintain  hospitals,  or  to  prevent  ac- 
cidents? Shall  we  revile  ignorance  or  provide 
education?  Shall  we  look  to  effects  or  seek 
out  the  causes? 

There  is  an  individual  application  of  this 
social  religion.  The  religious  thought  of  our 
modern  churches  is  turned  toward  personal 
salvation.  Each  man  seeks  for  his  own.  He 
praj's,  "Dear  Lord,  save  my  soul,  save  me. 
Be  sure  that  I  go  direct  to  Paradise.  Provide 
for  my  future  happiness  and  welfare."  I  re- 
cently listened  to  a  conversation  full  of  mean- 
ing to  the  modern  Church.  Two  persons  were 
talking.  There  was  a  little,  lonely  girl  sick 
in  the  hospital.  One  said:  "I  am  going  to  the 
hospital  to  see  my  little  friend."  The  other 
[218] 


SOCIAL    RESPONSIBILITY 

answered:  "I  am  going  to  Church  to  save  my 
soul."  If  the  devil  was  abroad  that  bright 
Sabbath  morning  he  had  at  least  one  splendid 
opportunity. 

JNIost  of  us  believe  in  a  hereafter.  We  feel 
confident  that  there  is  a  future  life.  We  look 
forward  to  the  great  day  of  judgment  when 
the  books  shall  be  opened  and  the  people  of 
the  world  shall  be  judged  and  shall  be  divided 
as  the  shepherd  divides  the  sheep  from  the 
goats,  and  some  shall  be  set  upon  the  right 
hand  among  the  sheep  and  some  on  the  left 
hand  among  the  goats.  What  shall  determine 
that  division?  What  actions  will  be  judged? 
What  questions  will  be  asked?  Will  the  ques- 
tions be  personal?  "Were  you  happy?"  "Was 
love  your  Hfe  motive?"  "Have  you  lived  up  to 
your  ideals?"  "Did  you  observe  the  moral 
law?"  "Did  you  take  God's  name  in  vain?" 
"Did  you  lie,  steal,  or  kill?"  Make  no  such 
fond  mistake.  These  questions  are  personal 
questions,  but  the  questions  at  the  gate  of  Par- 
adise will  be  social  ones,  for  St.  Peter  repre- 
sents Jesus,  and  Jesus  preached  a  social  gos- 
pel. 

When  your  fate  shall  tremble  in  the  balance 
[210] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

between  the  flock  of  sheep  and  the  herd  of 
goats,  these  questions  will  be  asked  you: 
"From  what  city  did  you  come?"  "From 
Pittsburg,  Chicago,  Savannah,  Baltimore, 
Scranton,  Harrisburg?" 

"What  social  conditions  prevailed  in  your 
city?  Were  men,  women,  children,  and  board- 
ers crowded  into  small,  inadequate  living  quar- 
ters? Was  the  school  system  reaching  the  chil- 
dren? Was  the  death-rate  high  or  low?  Were 
women  protected?  How  many  babies  died 
each  year  because  the  milk  was  bad? 

"What  were  political  conditions?  Did  the 
city  councils  sell  franchises?  Was  the  police 
department  in  league  with  vice?  Was  the  dis- 
trict attorney  honest  and  efficient?  Were  the 
streets  kept  clean?  Were  parks  and  play- 
ground facilities  made  as  large  a  part  of  the 
city  program  as  graft  palaces  and  pergolas  ? 

"What  economic  conditions  existed?  Were 
men  overworked  and  underpaid?  Have  you 
ever  heard  of  child  labor?  Did  sweatshops 
abound?  Was  there  any  Sunday  work?  Were 
industrial  accidents  prevented?  Did  they 
safeguard  dangerous  trades?  Was  the  work- 
ing life  of  the  people  long  and  happy?" 
[220] 


SOCIAL   RESPONSIBILITY 

What  will  be  your  reply?  "I  fulfilled  the 
law.  I  visited  the  fatherless  and  the  widows 
in  their  affliction.  I  kept  the  Commandments, 
and  I  gave  to  the  poor.  I  am  not  sure  that 
my  tenements  had  fire-escapes,  and  the  Board 
of  Health  was  continually  complaining  that 
the  plumbing  was  out  of  repair,  but  that  was 
not  my  business.  My  agent  attended  to  the 
property,  for  it  was  only  a  side  investment. 
There  was  some  complaint  about  the  school 
system  in  our  town,  and  I  believe  that  the 
death-rate  from  typhoid  was  very  high.  I 
was  too  busy,  however,  to  pay  much  attention 
to  such  matters.  I  was  interested  in  manu- 
facturing, and  that  took  most  of  my  time. 
I  knew  very  little  about  politics.  They  were 
controlled  by  an  organized  gang  of  public 
plunderers,  against  which  one  man  was  power- 
less. I  must  say  I  did  not  always  vote,  be- 
cause one  vote  did  not  really  count  unless  you 
voted  with  the  organization.  Besides,  it  was 
not  well  to  vote  against  the  organization,  since 
the  organization  stood  for  business  interests 
and  prosperity.  I  held  a  few  good  railroad 
stocks,  and  the  papers  did  say  at  one  time  that 
the  road  in  which  I  held  stock  had  bought  a 
[221] 


SOCIAL    RELIGION 

city  franchise.  But  I  was  very  busy  just  then 
opening  up  some  new  territory  in  South  Am- 
erica, and  I  did  not  pay  very  much  attention 
to  the  report.  I  am  absolutely  uninformed  as 
to  the  economic  conditions.  We  employed 
about  eleven  hundred  men,  and  paid  them  as 
much  as  seven  dollars  a  day.  To  be  sure,  there 
were  some  who  got  only  one  dollar  and  a  quar- 
ter, but  thej'^  were  the  exception,  and,  besides, 
they  were  only  immigrants  and  were  accus- 
tomed to  living  on  next  to  nothing.  We  did 
the  best  we  could  for  our  men,  but  competition 
was  keen  and  we  could  not  go  too  far.  We 
worked  on  Sunday  because  our  competitors 
did,  and  we  worked  an  eleven-and-a-half-hour 
day  in  order  to  increase  our  output.  Yes,  there 
were  sweatshops  in  town,  and  some  child 
labor.  We  employed  a  few  children  ourselves, 
but  only  in  one  department.  We  could  not  use 
them  profitably  elsewhere.  You  see,  I  am  not 
up  on  many  of  these  things,  because  I  was  a 
busy  man  and  could  not  take  much  time  away 
from  my  own  affairs." 

You  will  recollect  that  Jesus  says:  "Inas- 
much as  ye  did  it  not  unto  one  of  the  least  of 
these,  ye  did  it  not  unto  ^le,"  and  He  pro- 
[  222  ] 


SOCIAL   RESPONSIBILITY 

nounced  that  judgment  as  He  divided  the 
sheep  from  the  goats. 

Men  and  women  all  over  America  to-day 
have  fallen  among  thieves.  You  must  bind  up 
their  wounds;  j^ou  must  catch  the  thieves,  and 
you  must  break  up  the  system  which  promotes 
thievery.  But  before  you  begin  thief-catch- 
ing ask  yourself  the  question:  "If  some  one 
should  cry,  'stop  thief,'  would  my  conscience 
begin  to  run?" 

Jesus  told  the  parable  of  the  Good  Samari- 
tan and  said,  "Go  and  do  thou  likewise,"  and 
He  says  it  to  me,  and  He  says  it  to  you,  "Go 
and  do  thou  likewise."  Social  maladjustment 
offers  boundless  opportunities  to  the  modern 
Samaritan — underj)aid  men,  overworked  wom- 
en, hungry  children.  We  are  the  salt  of  the 
earth,  a  city  set  upon  a  hill,  a  part  of  a  great 
social  movement.  Love  thy  God;  love  thy 
neighbor;  love  thyself.  Be  fair  to  men;  pro- 
tect women;  give  op^iortunity  to  children. 
This  is  the  duty  of  the  Good  Samaritan:  the 
keynote  of  progress;  the  clarion  call  of  Social 
Religion. 

The  fathers  have  eaten  sour  grapes,  but  the 
child's  teeth  are  not  set  on  edge.  Most  men  are 
[  223  ] 


SOCIAL   RELIGION 

at  birth  potentially  equal.  Beggars,  tramps, 
prostitutes,  and  criminals  are  made  by  over- 
work, bad  housing,  poor  food,  and  unemploy- 
ment. Men  are  low-browed,  stunted,  and  hag- 
gard because  of  the  overwhelming  social  odds 
against  them.  The  mark  of  the  beast  has 
been  placed  on  their  foreheads  not  by  a  jealous 
God  or  a  sportive  devil,  but  by  the  hideous 
array  of  maladjustments  which  we  tolerate  in 
our  semi-barbaric  Christian  civilization. 

Maladjustment  is  darkness.  Adjustment  is 
light.  What  is  darkness?  It  is  but  the  ab- 
sence of  light.  Turn  on  the  light.  Teach  the 
truth.  "Ye  shall  know  the  truth  and  the  truth 
shall  make  you  free."  Truth  is  the  only  light 
that  can  banish  the  darkness  of  maladjust- 
ment. Teach  the  truth  in  your  churches  and 
your  schools — the  truth  about  the  appalling 
maladjustments  which  threaten  the  founda- 
tions of  civilization;  about  cooperative  in- 
dustry ;  about  progress  and  brotherhood  in  so- 
ciety; about  the  innate  goodness  and  capacity 
of  men ;  about  Social  Rehgion.  Tell  the  world 
that  progress  must  be  made,  that  progress  is 
being  made,  and  that  you  are  helping  to  shape 
the  future  with  its  uncounted  possibilities. 
[224] 


INDEX 


Accidents, 

Factory,  150 

Mine, 
Character  of,  147 

Street,  151 
Achievement, 

Possibilities  of,  183 
Addams,  Jane, 

Quoted,  65  and  82 
Baltimore, 

Wages  of  Women  in,  55 
Cherry, 

Mine  Disaster  at,  145 
Chicago  Vice  Commission, 

Findings  of,  66 
Child  Labor, 

Cost  of,  77 

Effects  of,  79 

Laws  on,  209 
Child  Labor  and  Family 

Standards,  83 
Children, 

Needs  of,  177 
Church, 

Activity, 

Possibilities  of,  216 

Problems  of,  214 
City  Plannings, 

Effects  of,  210 
Congestion, 

Extent  of,  91 


Dangerous  Tradea, 

Meaning  of,  153 
Depravity, 

Doctrine  of,  169 
Devine,  E.  T., 

Quoted,  132 
Dickens,  Charles, 

Quoted,  17 
Dress, 

Responsibilities  for,  23 
Eastman,  Crystal, 

Quoted,    155 
Eight-Hour  Day, 

Adequacy  of,  122 
Fitch,  J.  A., 

Quoted,  110  and  118 
Good  Samaritan, 

Parable  of,  9 
Interpreted,  185 
Modem,  188 
Gray,  Thomas, 

Quoted,  173 
Hard,  William, 

Quoted,  140 
Hours  of  Labor, 

Regulation  of,  204 
Housing, 

Improvement  of, 
Abroad,  102 
New  York,  95 


[225 


INDEX 


Hypocrisy, 

Attitude  of  Jesus  Towanl,  6 
Intemperance, 

As  a  Cause  of  Poverty,  51 
Jesus, 

Gospel  of,  2 

Social  Doctrine  of,  11 

Social  Teachings  of,  3 
Kennedy,  Charles  R., 

Quoted,  13 
Kingsley,  S.  C, 

Quoted,  101 
Kipling,  Rudyard, 

Quoted,  138  and  139 
Length  of  Life, 

Conditions  of,  162 
Life, 

Length  of,  161 

Lengthening  of,  164 
Living  Conditions, 

Pittsburgh,  90 
Living  Wages,  52 
Lowell,  James  Russell, 

Quoted,  14 
Man,  Innate  Qualities  of,  170 
Marsh.  B.  C, 

Quoted,  81 
^Minimum  Wage  Laws, 

For  Women,  207 
Opportunity, 

Distribution  of,  181 
Outlook. 

Hopefulness  of,  167 
Overcrowding, 

Extent  of,  93 
Overwork, 

Effects  of,  119 


Overwork, 

Extent  of,  105 
Pittsburgh,  110  and  118 
Railway  Employees,  107 
Steel  Industry,  110 

Patten,  S.  N., 
Quoted,  133 

Pittsburgh, 

Overwork  in,  110 

Plenty, 

Distribution  of,  19 

Premature  Death, 
Extent  of,  163 
Significance  of,  159 

Profession  and  Practice,  1 

Prosperity, 

In  the  United  States,  18 
True  Measure  of,  16 

Prostitution. 

Earnings  from,  67 
Economic  basis  for,  62 

Social  Religion. 

And  Maladjustment,  200 
And  Social  Problems,  5 
Content  of.  xiv  and  193 
Machinery  of,  195 
Practice  of,  197 
Theory  of,  194 

Social  Responsibility, 

And  Modern  Industry,  12 

Railroad  Wages,  39 

Rauschenbush,  Walter, 
Quoted,  xi 

Religion, 

Definition  of,  ix 

Riis,  Jacob, 
Quoted,  171 

226  ] 


INDEX 


Ruskin,  John, 

Quoted,  22 
School  Feeding, 

Eflacacy  of,  175 

Need  of,  44 
Schools, 

Purpose  of,  177 
Standard  of  Living, 

Estimates  of,  34 

In  New  York,  32 

In  Small  Towns,  35 

Importance  of,  30 

Perth  Amboy,  36 
Steel  Industrj', 

Hours  of  Work  in,  110 
Summer,  W.  T., 

Quoted,  06 
Tenements, 

Character  of,  92 

Conditions  in,  93 

New  York,  95 
Trade  Unions, 

Function  of,  202 
Twelve-Hour  Day, 

Meaning  of,  114 
Unemployment, 

Extent  of,  131 


Unemployment, 

Meaning  of,  125 

Remedies  for,  211 

Results  of,  134 
Veiller,  L., 

Quoted,  95 
Vice, 

As  an  Organized  Business,  55 

Returns  from,  67 
Wages, 

Alinimum  Wage  Law,  201 

Summary  of,  41 
Wage  Statistics, 

Extent  of,  37 

Railroads,  39 
White  Slavery, 

Immigrant  Women  and,  63 
Williams,  Charles  D., 

Quoted,  ix 
Womanhood, 

Waste  of,  181 
Women, 

Exploitation  of,  179 

Standard  of  Living  for,  55 

Wages  of,  54 

And  White  Slavery,  62 
In  Baltimore,  55 


[227] 


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